Page 395 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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signed by Mr Simon Tadd, who, at that time, was the executive officer, RSPCA ACT Inc.
The provision of the $100,000 appears to be a one-off payment. I am aware that the RSPCA, like many organisations, is experiencing difficulty at a time when the return from their investment is declining, the return from sales is declining because fewer people are purchasing pets from the shelter, and at a time when more people are abandoning pets. Indeed, I am told they are now getting requests for food hampers for pets because there are people out there who can no longer afford to pay for their food. We know that the RSPCA continues to argue with the government that it is incurring substantial cost on behalf of the community through its activities.
Mr Barr: There was a recurrent appropriation made in the 2008-09 budget. You would have asked questions on it in estimates.
MR SMYTH: Well, we will go back through it; we’ll look at it. This is the only jurisdiction that is not assisted. The question is: what has the Stanhope-Gallagher government done about these requests?
Mr Barr: In the last budget—ongoing funding, recurrent.
MR SMYTH: The minister for tourism butts in. Well, let’s turn to the domestic tourism marketing campaign. It was with great fanfare, for instance, that the Stanhope-Gallagher government announced that it intended to provide $500,000 to target people in Sydney and regional New South Wales to encourage them to visit Canberra and to help with the tourism downturn. This is a one-off payment. It is $500,000 that I think the industry has welcomed, and I welcome, because it goes some of the way towards making up for the money that was taken out of the budget in 2006. But then, a couple of days later, we had an announcement from Mr Stanhope—and I quote from the Canberra Times of 6 December:
The ACT Government has contributed $40,000 to a campaign urging Canberrans to bolster the local economy and spend all their Christmas dollars in the ACT.
I made the comment at the time that I thought that money would be better spent on tourism. But now we find that the money is coming out of the $500,000 for tourism. So it is not $500,000 to promote tourism interstate; it is $460,000. It would be interesting if the minister, when I finish speaking, takes the opportunity to tell us or to detail what the $500,000 will be spent on—whether it is just going to two locations or whether it will now go to more than that number of initiatives. That is the problem. As we dig deeper into this appropriation bill, as we try to get answers, all I get is more and more highlights that we should have had an estimates program to look at this properly.
The $40,000 will be spent on the “shop local” campaign. According to the Canberra Times—and I am happy for the government to correct this—the job would be to bolster the local economy, “urging Canberrans to bolster the local economy and spend all their Christmas dollars in the ACT”. I am not sure if that is classified as business tourism, but I have contacted the Tourism Industry Council and they were concerned that the government was not being up-front. Really, they would like to know how the
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