Page 2212 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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You only have to look at the hopper at the back of any commercial building to see that they are full of all kinds of mixed-up waste. The government will need to do more than provide a commercial sector liaison person. This is about more than education. The minister himself said in estimates, “These other folks out there, though, in the retail and the commercial area are not picking it up as quickly as they could.” What does he expect? This person could help more if there was something more tangible being suggested to businesses. Let us look forward also to the State of the environment report. This is an output under TAMS. Let us hold the government to ensuring the state of the environment report is out well before the election. (Time expired.)
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra) (11.41): I want to take three minutes to deal with one minor part of this budget, and that is the dragway. This government has betrayed the motor sport fraternity, especially the dragway fraternity. For the last two elections they have promised a dragway. On 18 October 2004 they said it would be built in 18 months on block 51 at Majura. Of course, they have used every conceivable excuse not to do so, including a very flawed assessment which even members of the committee that was established to oversee that were quite aware of. Indeed, some members complained about it. Of course, the government was never serious about doing it. So what has happened to the money? Page 84 of the estimates report states:
The Committee discussed an allocation of $8 million in project funds originally earmarked for a Dragway, a project which had been unable to proceed.
That is absolute nonsense. The government simply never intended to do it in the first place. The report continues:
The budget provides funding of $8 million in 2008-09 for the ACT Motorsports Fund; however, there are no details setting out the purpose for this funding. The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation provided no detail in the Estimates Committee hearings, except that this Fund replaces the previous budget allocations for the now defunct dragway project.
I asked the minister a number of questions about that. I do not know who he has consulted because a few people I have spoken to certainly have not heard of any great consultation in relation to that money, and they would be absolutely fascinated to have some consultation and see what he intends to do. The Chief Minister refused to even look at or consider the dissenting report, which is typical of the arrogance of this government and the way it is completely out of touch. The dissenting report made some sensible suggestions. At page 35 it said:
The budget provides funding of $8 million in 2008-09 for the ACT motor sports fund. However, there are no details setting out the purpose for this funding.
The dissenting report recommends:
We recommend that the Government table in the Assembly, at or before the last sitting for the 6th Assembly, a report indicating:
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