Page 3465 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 14 November 2006
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For this new library $800,000 was provided to enhance the collection with new books, hundreds of contemporary CDs, DVDs, audio books and literacy and English learning resources. This has resulted in a massive increase in visitation to the library, with the number of people jumping from 5,566 a month in the old library to 12,106 in the new one. In addition, the borrowings at Kippax jumped from 9,473 a month to 23,075. This shows what the right library in the right location with the right resources can do.
The Stanhope Labor government refurbished Erindale and Woden libraries in 2003 and 2004 respectively at a total cost of almost $2 million. The refurbishments provided improved internal layout, better access for people with disabilities, enhanced computer areas to allow for expansion of electronic services, better located reading areas to make more use of natural light, new youth areas and improved facilities and furniture. The $1.1 million refurbishment of Belconnen library has also just been completed and it features a new computer area, new study areas, new public toilets, a revamp of the children’s area, as well as new seating and furniture to maximise the customers’ comfort.
Assembly members have watched for some time the construction of the new Civic library next door to this building as part of the $16 million Civic library and link project. It will be opened by the Chief Minister on 8 December this year. This library will be over 60 per cent larger than the existing one and will have new computer facilities, including a training room, community meeting space and a youth area with MTV play station and CD listening devices. It will also provide exciting opportunities for new strategic partnerships with the library’s neighbours in Civic Square—the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre and Resource Library, refurbished at a cost of $3 million, as well as the Canberra Museum and Gallery and the Canberra Theatre, which are part of the Civic library and link project.
The ACT government is committed to ensuring that our public library facilities, services and programs remain viable and meet the needs of the ACT community in the coming years. Currently two-thirds of our collection materials are over five years of age, so we are making a substantial investment in modernising public library collections as well as introducing technologies that make borrowing easier. The government also has to be mindful that, even though the city is expanding, its population growing and we generally are having a boom time in the private sector, the government’s resources are limited. Those limited resources need to be spent equitably. For example, we need to recognise the need to expand the Gungahlin library to meet the needs of the area’s rapidly growing population.
There is much discussion these days of sustainability and in a government context providing sustainable services to the community. Canberra has been living beyond its means but the Stanhope Labor government took the decision this year to move to a more sustainable basis. Mr Pratt would wind that decision back. I have not kept a running total of the costs of our decisions he would reverse, but with free parking at the hospital, reduced parking fees elsewhere, reopening this library and a couple of other things he would cost the community somewhere in the vicinity of $10 million. He makes uncosted policy on the run to suit his own purposes rather than thinking of the wider community.
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