Page 2001 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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MR BARR (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Urban Renewal and Minister for Tourism and Events) (5.09): In the interests of time I will not go over all of the points that Minister Rattenbury has made. I indicate that Labor members will be supporting Mr Rattenbury’s amendment. I think he has provided a comprehensive response to all of the issues raised by the shadow minister. In the interests of time I will not repeat them all, other than to say that the amendment moved by the minister responds to all of the issues raised. In addition, he has now given the Assembly a very comprehensive response to some further issues that have been raised in the context of the debate. I commend the amendment to the Assembly, and the government will be supporting it.
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (5.10): I will talk to the amendment and close the debate. I am used to Mr Rattenbury partially agreeing with me and then saying, “No, what the government’s doing is actually fine.” I was not critical of the public servants per se. I was critical, and I stand by the criticism that I offered. It was not personal criticism of individuals; it was about the planning process, which I still claim fell far short. With respect to this facility that we spent $7 million on, the basic seating requirements have not been looked at, and it does not have a scoreboard or the other facilities that would cater for the type of crowd expectations which are the reason why such an upgrade was required in the first place.
I am surprised and disappointed that Mr Rattenbury has left the car parking issue at such a low level of urgency. Yes, there are other grounds; there are other parking areas. But one of the things that is overlooked is that Mr Barr originally suggested that people park in the Canberra Hospital car park. Obviously, that is not a very good suggestion whatsoever when people who use that car park are parking there in order to visit family members. Staff also have to park there.
What is left out of this equation about the number of parking spaces available is that those parking spaces are adjacent to other nearby grounds. There are two other grounds opposite Woden park where they play Australian Rules, Rugby League and Rugby Union. Those grounds most often are in use at the same time that the facilities at Woden are in use. So there is a wilful blindness to some of the issues that have been raised in my motion.
My motion is not meant to be a political motion. I think I have addressed the issues. I commend part of Mr Rattenbury’s answer—the fact that he acknowledged some of the shortfalls and said he was willing to have a look at them. I welcome that. With respect to the facility that was promised to the community in Labor’s promises, by the now Chief Minister when he was sports minister, we are simply trying to keep the government accountable. The fact that more money was spent on Woden oval in itself is good, if it meets the expectations of what it was meant to do. What I am questioning, and what I have not been told, is that if the original $4.5 million was going to cover all of the things that basically are covered now, I cannot see what additional things have been built. So I still do not have an explanation as to why the enhanced $7 million target was reached. But I would welcome some information on that from the current minister for sport.
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