Page 360 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
attention and I should not have to worry about the look and feel of the city or the concerns of our residents.” Most, if not all, of the matters reported to me, however, have in fact already been reported to Canberra Connect. ACT residents have followed the Chief Minister’s direction, yet can get nothing done. Often going to the elected representative is the last resort for Canberrans.
It is clear that even though TAMS has a large number of managers, even though TAMS has recently been the subject of a strategic budget review and even though Canberra Connect continues to employ numerous customer service managers, something is going seriously wrong. The ACT government is not serious about getting the job done. It is clear there is still a lack of leadership, which means local services are not being delivered.
When the Chief Minister took on this portfolio after the recent election he said he would be the mayor of Canberra. There have been no satisfactory improvements in local services and it is time for Mr Stanhope to be more mayor and less social engineer. It is time to get beyond the glossy headlines and focus on the delivery of services.
Ms Martha Ortiz de Rosas
Honey and pepper exhibition
Volunteering ACT
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.34): I would like to mention three things this evening in the adjournment debate. One is to say farewell to the ambassador for Mexico, Martha Ortiz de Rosas, who is leaving us and going to the Republic of Korea with her husband and family. I would like to wish her well and thank her for the work that she has done, both as ambassador for Mexico and as the dean of the diplomatic corps in her time here, and recognise the work that she did, particularly in establishing a Latin-American plaza which I was happy to be able to work with her on as well, which gave me great pleasure. She is a fine ambassador for her country and I am sure she will continue to be so in her new appointment.
Secondly, I would like to talk about a lovely art exhibition that I was fortunate to be able to open, Honey and pepper, on 5 February at the Belconnen Arts Centre. It is at the Belconnen Arts Centre till 21 February and I would encourage everyone to get out to that wonderful centre. I am sure lots of us have been to the centre since it opened and seen how vibrant that centre is and how much goes on in it. It is very well utilised by the people of my electorate but I am sure that many other people from around the ACT and even Beyond now visit it. This exhibition was by six artists who, although born overseas, all now make Canberra their home. I know some of these artists personally and I was very pleased to be able to launch their exhibition.
It was called Honey and Pepper because their artwork reflects both, I guess, the sweet things of their culture, the things that we would call attractive and pleasant, and the challenging parts of their culture and the sweet things and the challenging parts of their experience from living in Australia. Farideh Zariv, Fatima Killeen, Nasser Palangi, Silvia Velez, Fatemah Palangi and Maiju Altpere-Woodhead are the artists who have these different works on exhibition. I would encourage everybody to get out and have a look at those.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video