Page 5235 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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I will be up-front with the Assembly: that would be my starting position, but I do recognise with the passage of this bill that it will be a requirement to bring such an appointment back to the Assembly. I recognise that, and I hope to be able to convince colleagues in this place of the merit of that continuity.
In relation to Exhibition Park, it has always had the support of government. That said, there have been times—this is before my time as minister—when proposals that the board have put forward have not met with government support. It is not an automatic entitlement that just because a board puts forward a position to government it will be automatically endorsed. Whilst I know Mr Smyth has a particular issue about this—there may be something he would like to share privately outside the chamber about why that is—it is remarkable the level of attention that has gone into this matter. I think Mr Rattenbury has made some observation today in relation to those opposite and their obsession with small things.
The big picture is to ensure that EPIC does have a strong future. It is certainly my strong hope that, regardless of the administrative arrangements that are in place, through my portfolio, I will be able to see greater collaboration between Exhibition Park and our other major events venues. As I said, they actually have so much more in common than they do have differences. If I need to list them again to remind people, they are around ticketing, major event hosting, public transport, security and catering. There are so many areas where the venues have things in common and there are skill sets that are there across territory venues and events.
I would hope that we could see greater integration with what is a very small team of people who have a responsibility to manage Exhibition Park. It remains my view very firmly that it would be a much better administrative arrangement to see all of those people together and for them to be able to work across all of those venues. I have not given up on the hope that one day that might be able to be achieved.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.07): I would just like to reflect on some of the comments of Mr Barr. Mr Barr said that the previous board always had the support of the government. Well, for five years, they asked for a block of land that they were never given, and yet the new board received it almost immediately. For five years, they actually did have a master plan before the government. It was never approved. This is part of the problem in trusting this government, particularly this minister, on issues surrounding EPIC. For reasons unknown—perhaps the minister would like to explain—the cabinet refused consistently the requests of the previous board for access to a block of land to expand their operations to include low-cost accommodation that is now going ahead, and the master plan was never approved by the government. They are the questions that still hang over the cabinet and the minister. It may well be that this saga is not over yet if the minister is going to continue in this way.
I think we all think that EPIC is a very vital part of the ACT, and I think all in this place wish EPIC well. I urge the minister to get on with the job of putting the new board in place and complying with what has been expressed in this debate, complying with what the Assembly has said to him. Let us all get behind EPIC and make sure that it has the best board that it can have so that it can do the best in running EPIC for the benefit of the people of the ACT.
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