Page 1222 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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very proud of them as well. So I expect that the committee will undertake its work with great vigour.
The Government, of course, is totally supportive of the cultural life of the ACT. I think it is a measure of the health of a community, very often, to look at the vigour and the vitality and the variety of cultural activity that takes place in that community. Canberra, as I say, is much blessed, but it is a good opportunity to have a look at what our future needs might be and where there are gaps in the community at the moment in regard to cultural activities.
Mr Speaker, I would encourage the committee to seek a very broad range of views on the reference that they have here. I think that there has been an enormous amount of work done already on some of the aspects of their task, and I think that they should harness that work that already has been done and also get opinions and views from a very broad range of the community.
I would particularly encourage them to speak to some of the groups in the community that have expertise in cultural matters and to bear in mind that many of those groups, like the Arts Development Board, have devoted enormous amounts of time and voluntary effort to doing very much for the cultural life of the ACT. Those people have brought to their work a great deal of expertise, a great deal of experience, in cultural matters. I would encourage the committee to make use of that expertise.
I would also like to encourage the committee to look right across the ACT in their terms of reference. I know that we have heard of the cultural needs of Tuggeranong - obviously a topic which concerns all members of this Assembly - but they must bear in mind that there are other areas of the ACT besides Tuggeranong, and besides section 19, of course, and that they also have needs in the cultural area.
I, for my own part, refer you to the old North Canberra area, where just about the only cultural facility, I think, is the Dickson Library, which for many years now has been in need of some work. They have carried on a very efficient library service there but it is virtually the only cultural facility in that large area where the population is changing, and I would like the committee in particular to have a look at North Canberra.
I would like to encourage the committee, also in reference (b) of the motion, to have a look at the library facilities and the needs of the community. I think that libraries are often overlooked in terms of the cultural life of a community. In my view, they are one of the most basic requirements of any community. There can be nothing more important to the whole community than access to the sort of information that is only held in libraries. I think that in the ACT for many, many years we have been well served by the Canberra Public Library Service but that service has
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