Page 4021 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 30 October 2013
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come to fruition. And I commend Mr Smyth for his motion, because what that is doing is trying to make sure that the promise in the parliamentary agreement of a convention centre—the word, the rhetoric that we have heard in this debate—actually does come to fruition and that we see that there is tangible action being taken by this government to deliver on something that I think we all agree would be of great benefit to the people of Canberra.
Indeed, the case for an enhanced convention centre has been well made, and I think that the comments that have been made by all members here support the arguments that are being put to us by certainly the Business Council and Chris Faulks—and I know she has been very active in her lobbying on this case—and obviously also by the Canberra Convention Bureau and Robyn Hendry and her team. So there seems to be a momentum towards this, and what Mr Smyth’s motion very reasonably does today is essentially try to put some meat on the bones and some accountability on the government to actually tell us where we are at and make sure that we have a plan in terms of where we are going.
What he has asked for is that by the last sitting day of this year the government table the work conducted on the investment-ready plan. I note that Mr Barr has said that he will report back to the Assembly but, as we know from this government on things like their tax reform, reporting back on something can mean something pretty vague from this mob. It can be just, “Yeah, we’re doing it,” and refer to an old report. What we as the opposition want to see is the detail. We want the surety that the work is being done, that the investment is being made by the government to get that investment-ready plan ready to go.
I think it is entirely reasonable that, given that the government have said that they are doing the work, they provide that work to us so that we can look it, we can review it, we can analyse it, we can make sure that the government are actually doing the work that they say they are doing. And the fact that Mr Barr has actively sought to remove that from this motion does actually give me cause for concern and raises a red flag on this issue.
There is debate around the concept of establishing a trust, but I think it is useful if I refer to the Canberra Business Council’s media release of today. I believe Mr Smyth read some of this earlier, but I will go to the specific points:
Canberra Business Council hopes a motion being moved today by the ACT Liberals to establish a Trust to drive the Australia forum project will be unanimously supported and help fast-track this important project.
That is pretty clear: It continues:
“For over five years we have been suggesting that the best way to ensure Canberra gets a world-class convention centre is to establish an independent body that is of government, but sits outside of government. This body would be responsible for planning, implementing and possibly even managing the Australia Forum.
“Other states have set up bodies such as this to oversee their convention centres and it has worked well in those jurisdictions.
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