Page 1565 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 April 2013
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events during the centenary celebrations, things like the You are Here festival and the Village Glebe Park. Again, these are the sort of things that will attract a different crowd to Canberra and they will stay and do other things.
We need to continue to seek to support these events. I do not mean by way of just direct financial support; it can be by way of a facilitation process as much as anything else. The government and the government sector need to really think about how we can facilitate those events taking place. Smaller events also fill hotels during the off-peak period, which is important for diversification of our tourism market.
The final thing I would like to say today, so that hopefully I will leave time for Mr Coe to speak, is that one of the things we need to think about is how people will get here. I was excited today to see the new report about high-speed rail, which would vastly open up access to our city and bring Canberra within 64 minutes of Sydney, consolidating our position as a major regional centre. I am very pleased that Canberra has been identified as the preferred first route for this east coast high-speed rail network. That is something the Greens have lobbied hard for. Of course it has been my federal colleagues who have got this issue back on the federal government’s agenda.
I am disappointed at the proposed time frames. The report projects that the first leg to Canberra could be completed by 2035, 22 years from now. It is an extraordinary delay. I did note, in doing a bit of research this morning, that Malaysia and Singapore have just announced a joint partnership to develop a 350-kilometre high-speed rail link between their two countries and they expect to have that completed by 2020. So I think we can be a little more ambitious than having a completion date of 2035. I think such an event would do wonders for assisting in the promotion of major events in the ACT economy.
Discussion concluded.
Adjournment
Motion (by Mr Barr) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Evatt Primary School
MR COE (Ginninderra) (4.32): I rise today to pay tribute to the community at Evatt Primary School in my electorate of Ginninderra. Evatt Primary School was founded in 1974 and has grown to around 350 students from preschool to year 6. The school is led by Principal Susan Skinner and the chair of the board is Adam McEvoy. Ngaio Buck is the parents representative on the board and Alex Cairns is the staff representative.
Evatt Primary School seeks to actively foster and teach respectful relationships within its community and seeks to encourage the development of positive and effective relationships in the context of a supportive learning environment.
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