Page 3814 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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Mr Hargreaves: It was a bit over $24,000, I think, Chief Minister, wasn’t it?
MR MULCAHY: I hope Mr Hargreaves will pay attention, Mr Speaker, because route development—
Mr Hargreaves: I’ll pay attention to $24,000, Mr Mulcahy.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR MULCAHY: Route development is very much in his area—$220,000. I am sure members here will help you plan out the route if it is such a challenge. I find it absolutely extraordinary that nearly a quarter of the budget is going on this. We then see that three staff are required, at a cost of nearly $170,000, to plan this one-day event. Some of the other aspects are reasonable—the three visits at $8,500 does seem sensible. The customs and immigration charges at $40,000 to process 150 people is probably a fee determined at the commonwealth level. But there are some standout figures that disturb me. I refer to the relay route activities costing $103,000. As I said, the cost of staffing seems excessive.
The marketing promotion for this event is costing $120,000. All of these things, when added up, total a bill of just under $1 million. I would strongly urge the Chief Minister, even if we are only paying half of it, to take out the red pen and look at these things critically. This reads like a budget that has never been scrutinised by anybody who is particularly conscious of cost, and that is obviously a view shared by the committee having regard to the highlighting we are giving to this matter.
I would also draw members’ attention to page 20 of the report. In particular, I refer to the amount of $75,000 to fund a report on current and future event-related infrastructure capacities. All members are keen on the importance of tourism but it has to raise the question as to why, after six years in government, the territory now is having to embark on an exercise to work out what sort of events could be held in Canberra.
Either this minister is brilliant and his predecessors were far from it or the government has been sitting on its hands for an extraordinary period of time and neglecting a very important opportunity to bring extra cash in to the ACT economy. I think it is worth noting that whilst the concept may be in order, the fact that it has taken until now to even be addressed says a fair bit about the priority, particularly that Mr Quinlan obviously gave, to the area of tourism.
We see a substantial outlay in the area of ACTION. The public is clearly very unhappy with the way the minister is overseeing this agency. The timetable is still the subject of complaints. Whilst I realise you cannot run a bus for every single individual’s needs, clearly the level of complaint suggests that the government got it wrong in a big way. I guess the minister acknowledged that on radio the other day. We can only hope and pray that the eight per cent of commuters that are committed to using public transport are not deterred further from using this service because of changes that are being imposed by the territory government.
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