Page 3240 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
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One organisation that spoke with me earlier this week said that they would love to hold their events in the ACT but simply cannot afford to do so anymore. This organisation pointed out that it was not just the exorbitant cost of hiring publicly owned venues, but also the rising fees of everything else in the territory, as well as what feels like ever-increasing compliance obligations. I quote the head of this organisation:
If we could get access to a significant venue for cultural events and government support to manage the cost of these events, this would be of great benefit to the community.”
But he added:
This is currently a pipe dream.
In conclusion, I welcome the feasibility study included in this motion even though it should have been done years ago. At the same time, I put those opposite on very clear notice that multicultural community groups are already finding it difficult to afford to operate in this territory. Having a venue that almost none of them can afford to hire will be seen as further evidence that this government is completely out of touch with their essential needs.
Our multicultural communities need affordable, large venues with adequate parking space for larger crowds. Having attended many events at EPIC, both large and small, it has proven to be a good venue, but the hiring costs are pushing community organisations away and forcing them to hold events somewhere else. I urge this government to reconsider hiring costs for community groups.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (11.39): I rise today to speak in support of the motion put forward by Mr Gupta and Ms Orr. I thank them for agreeing to amend their original motion to include scoping of alternative sites in the Gungahlin region for a multicultural centre and to not limit the use of any new or revitalised venue to multicultural groups only. It is well known that a significant proportion of Gungahlin’s population are from culturally diverse backgrounds. When compared to other town centre regions in Canberra, Gungahlin has the highest proportion of people born overseas or with one or both parents born overseas.
The 2016 census tells us that over 71,000 people were living in Gungahlin at that time and of course it has grown since then. At that time 62.2 per cent of them were born in Australia. This means 37.8 per cent of them were not. The most common other countries of birth were China at five per cent, India also at five per cent, England at 2.3 per cent, Vietnam at 1.4 per cent and the Republic of South Korea at 1.3 per cent. Forty-three per cent of people in Gungahlin had both parents born overseas, and a further 11 per cent had one parent who was born overseas, compared to almost 40 per cent who had both parents born in Australia.
All these stats and figures certainly show that there is a strong multicultural presence in Gungahlin particularly, although of course that is the case right across the city, with
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