Page 2892 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
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They do go into history as part of the ACT history and we would like to hear from Minister Grassby what steps she may or may not have taken to protect those installations in the period since she has been in government.
We would be very interested to know the reason why a function was held out there in the early morning recently. We call upon the Minister to give us a very frank and comprehensive statement as to why this is proposed. It is another one of these mysterious Labor Party proposals that float in from the void somewhere, from out of space maybe. We would like to know what the Minister's reason was for that proposal.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (11.20): As usual, Mr Collaery is wrong. The substantial damage was done long before we took over the Government. The very first week I was the Minister I went out to have a look at both the tracking stations because I had already had requests from many groups in Canberra who had asked whether they could take possession of them for different things - camps for kids, and things like that. So I, myself, went out the first week to have a look at them. The damage was incredible. I could hardly walk through them; I would have fallen through holes. It was then explained to me, by the professional people who knew about it, the amount of asbestos that was in the building. It was so bad that even the toilets were smashed to pieces, windows were smashed, and things had been taken. This was all under the Commonwealth Government.
When I was told how dangerous the situation was, I then said that I would take it to Cabinet. The department suggested that they be pulled down but in some way we should commemorate the fact that they had been a very historic part of Canberra. I understand that we got the first message from the moon. It said, "A small step for man, a giant step for humanity" - and we got it before the Americans. Therefore there should be some way that we can commemorate that. The thing was that it was suggested by my department that before any more damage was done they should be pulled down.
I took it to Cabinet. Cabinet felt that because it was such an historic site the people of Canberra should be given the opportunity to say what they felt about it. It was then decided that the only way this could be done was to refer it to the committee. Once I got Cabinet's permission I approached Mr Humphries to ask him whether he would be happy to have the reference. There would be no sense in doing it if he felt the committee could not handle it. Mr Humphries said that they would be delighted to have it referred to the committee.
Mr Humphries: I did not quite say that.
MRS GRASSBY: So it was then handed over to the committee.
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