Page 1385 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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not. Yes, we now find that, after 11 years of Labor rule in the ACT, our visitor numbers are 16 per cent less than when they started. That is a genuine shame.
The motion also says we need to work with business. I think part of the reason that the visitor numbers are down is that this government do, I think in some ways, fail to work with business. We get all the noise. For instance, there is some funding for the Convention Bureau, which we have always supported, and we said that that was appropriate. But when you look at this brochure that they have put out and you talk to the business community, they are saying what this lacks is appropriate dates and details. The cynic in me might say: “They are going to put out the full program in September. That would be during the election campaign. There is a government who are looking for a good news story for a government rather than adequately assisting business to plan.”
If you want to go to the business events market, they are planning three, four, five years out and they did not have anything to take to the market at that time to say: “This is what is on in Canberra in 2013. Come here. It is going to be a great year.” We have missed the business events market. People in the community will tell you that. People in the industry will tell you that.
Mr Barr: I spoke to Robyn Hendry the other night and she said it is going to be one of the best years ever.
MR SMYTH: Yes, they are having it despite you, minister.
Members interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Order, minister! Order, members!
MR SMYTH: I am paying you a compliment. If you do not want to take it, fine.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order, Mr Smyth! Sit down, Mr Smyth. Stop the clock. I will not have a direction to cease ignored. It will not happen. Minister, I would appreciate it if you did not incite him and, Mr Smyth, I would appreciate it if you did not enjoin battle across the chamber. If my request to cease that sort of behaviour is ignored—I asked three times and I was ignored—I will not hesitate to take some action on it. Mr Smyth, you have the floor.
MR SMYTH: The problem for, particularly, the hotel sector is that—and they are telling me—it is very hard to start packaging what is in this glimpse because they do not have solid dates on which to plan. If you go through it, there are very few solid dates, except, oddly enough, on 1 February we are opening the arboretum, a favourite of the government. We know that the full program will be announced in September 2012. Call me a little cynical, perhaps a bit jaded after all of this, but it then goes on and the only other dates that seem to appear are: the Canberra City Band will turn 150 on 14 March; the Canberra Black Opal, which we know is always on that weekend of 11-12 March, has got a date attached to it—18 June, for the Lions game; and the International Music Festival will run from the 9th to the 19th.
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