Page 282 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 31 May 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I heartily endorse those comments. I would have thought that the ACT's planning structure, as it is presently set up, is indeed an attraction in itself. People come to Canberra knowing that it is a planned city, a city on a monumental scale, a city with a special uniqueness which ensures that it is unlike any other city in Australia, and that, I hope, will always be the case.
Mr Speaker, we have to some extent relied on a stereo-typical image of Canberra. That is unfortunate perhaps, but I am sure that it need not stay the same. The Deputy Chief Minister referred to tourism being a 24 hours a day, seven days a week business, and indeed it is. I think unfortunately that has not always been the case in the ACT. The most frequent complaint I hear from tourists to whom I speak, in respect of staying in the ACT for any length of time, is that there are all too few things for tourists to do outside those normal business hours. I think we need to pick up a bit in this area. Obviously, that is primarily - in fact, wholly - the responsibility of the private sector, but I hope that will be given attention and that we can rectify that obvious problem.
One aspect of tourism about which I want to talk is training. Tourism needs an infrastructure. Clearly, the transport infrastructure is a very important one, and the Government provides that. Also of some importance is training of people to serve the tourism industry, and obviously our technical and further education sector is extremely important in that regard.
Mr Speaker, I think it is impossible to overestimate the value of a highly trained work force. It is the essence of our viability as a nation, not just as a city. I believe that the more retention of students in our education system which we can engender the better chance we will have of competing in the tourist market, in the context of this debate and as a nation on the world stage.
I just want to run through a few of the things that we see as being important in this respect. Higher education, of course, presents opportunities to improve not only industry competitiveness within our region but also the quality of our lives and to broaden the economic base of the ACT. There is great potential for certain industries to grow up in the ACT - in particular, education based enterprises, to which I think a previous speaker has referred. The ACT has tremendous potential in that respect. We have a great centre of excellence in the ACT in the area of languages, for example. Languages are obviously crucial to tourism. There are all too few people in the tourism industry who can speak Japanese, which is a very important market for us. I hope it is possible not to ignore that and to take active steps to promote that.
I was distressed when the faculty of Asian studies was under threat at the Australian National University, because its role in promoting language based industries, if you
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .