Page 3472 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 14 November 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
PO2s and two PO1s, and it just goes on. Consider the introduction of a charge of $1 per hour—it says $1 per half hour in this page of the report—for the use of the internet. And it goes on; it does not end with the Griffith library.
Mr Pratt and I were at Erindale college the other day for the launch of a commonwealth government funded refurbishment of the science laboratories, and what were they talking about? They were talking about the fear that Erindale library was going to be closed, that it was going to be taken away from either the students or the public. But here is the secret plan—recommendation 1.14, which states:
Review the need for Mobile Library 2, and investigate opportunities to fund the option of bringing Home Library Service patrons … into libraries …
We have the home service because some people cannot get out of their homes. It is for the aged, the infirm, the crippled. What we are going to do now is to bring them to the libraries, instead of having the wonderful system that we have currently, which is to take the libraries to them. But it goes on, Mr Speaker, and it is very sad.
If people look at the report when it is put on the web tomorrow they will see on page 21 a list showing the number of registered members of the various libraries. The total is about 170,000 people. It is actually the biggest club in Canberra. It is the biggest voluntarily joined organisation in the ACT. We should be supporting those people in their desire to use their library service, not limiting it, not taking away mobile library 2, not threatening the services at Erindale. We should be building it up, because it is good for our society, it is good for equity. It is interesting that Mr Corbell made those points back in 2001, when he said:
… the issue of the digital divide is one which will be a growing equity and social justice issue for many ACT governments to come.
Apparently it is not a growing social justice and equity decision for this government, because there will be no social justice and there will be no equity. It is just going to take it away. The excuse tendered by the minister is that Weston Creek does not have a library. You should consider that, minister. He says that we have to do something more in Gungahlin, so we are going to rob Peter to pay Paul because of this government’s ineptitude and financial mismanagement, and that is what it comes down to.
This is a government that has got its priorities wrong. We are going to plant trees in an arboretum in the middle of a drought. That is not very sensible. Everybody is saying that at the shops. When you talk to people at the shops, they say, “We are not putting any plants in our garden. We will take out the ones that have died, but you do not replace them in the middle of a drought.” This government has got its priorities wrong. It would be interesting to see what the briefing document for this report says. Perhaps the minister could release the brief that the reporting group was given and had to comply with, because I can only see in these recommendations references to cuts to staff, cuts to services, savings to be made and the potential for more library closures. I think that is a terrible shame.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .