Page 3850 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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take a week to arrive because it is in that library over there. But we collect it in Griffith because it is easier for us to do that. So that is not an argument and people have the right to complain about a downgrading of the library system.
It is not just one library we are dealing with. It is a library system, and in this report there are reasons to worry about other libraries as well because, for instance, Dickson library is told it has got too much space—that maybe it should have a cafe or a bookshop in it.
Dr Lunn is an internationally renowned expert. I have looked at her website. I know she had done a lot of work all around the place, but she is not a Canberra local. That can be good too. You need the outside experts, but you also need the Canberra opinion. She actually says—this is what made me wonder—on page 23:
The Kippax Library recorded the most significant increase in business levels … in January to July 2005 and January to July 2006 (up 52.7 per cent).
Does she know that that library just opened? I do not know. There could be a good explanation for that. But my sense is that Dr Lunn did not have the local picture. She was actually told in this contract, which ironically is called the going forward together project, to have a look at our library service expenses in line with local government benchmarks. We do not have local government here. I know local governments run the libraries in Victoria. As I said when I spoke about the Griffith library before, I had a look at the library system in Victoria too, and I noticed that they have lots of libraries, not just one per 100,000 people.
I do not know which shires Mr Hargreaves looked at, but they were not the ones in the areas that I think Canberra should compare itself with. I think we should compare ourselves with some of the most well-heeled suburbs. It works with our UAIs, for instance. We are equivalent to the upper income earning areas of Sydney. It is probably truer in Melbourne. That is our demographic, and this is a demographic that deserves a good library system.
I do not feel that comfortable about voting for a censure motion. To me it is really about Mr Hargreaves having a difficult job. I also commend him for standing up in that rally and I commended him on the day, because I know how hard that must have been. I know how hard that must have been for Minister Barr as well at the school rallies. That is the tricky part about being in government. Do not worry; I acknowledge that that must be awful at times, and it must be awful when you have to enact decisions that you do not really like. It must be; you cannot like them all.
However, the way that you do it is to engage with people. Your community engagement strategy recognises that. Time and time again in relation to this budget and the decisions coming from it, the community engagement strategy has not been engaged. It is coming back and hitting the government now. Decisions only work when the community is brought along with you. Even Machiavelli could have probably told us that.
Sadly, I am going to join in this censure motion. I do so with an understanding of the difficulties of the issues that Mr Hargreaves faced, but I do so in a sense that he did
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