Page 2831 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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Toilet Blocks and Change Room Facilities
MR CORNWELL: My question is to the Minister for Sport. I hope that I get a better answer than he gave to the last question from this side.
Mr Berry: Only if you ask a better question.
MR CORNWELL: All right, I will. I refer to an article and a photograph in the Canberra Times last week featuring a toilet block at the Googong Dam which was built at a cost of approximately $110,000. I ask: How could a building in an isolated area such as the Googong Dam be built for that relatively small sum of money when your department quotes $300,000 to $350,000 to build change room facilities at suburban ovals?
Mr Wood: It is a single thunderbox; it is a one-holer.
MR BERRY: As I said, you get a good answer if you ask a good question.
Mr Cornwell: I am waiting.
MR BERRY: It is an easy one to answer, but it would have to be one of the silliest. I have never used that particular facility, but I do know that the standards for facilities which go on suburban ovals are very high, and it has been explained in this place before why that is so. They get a high level of use, I am informed, and I think - - -
Ms Follett: Hot water.
MR BERRY: All sorts of things - showers, change room facilities, sewerage lines, a kiosk - are built into the suburban oval facility. It is quite different from what somebody here described as a single thunderbox. Undoubtedly, that facility does not match up to that which is provided at suburban ovals, and I think even you would understand that that is probably the reason why there is a different cost.
If you want cheap thunderboxes on each of the suburban ovals, you can do it. I am not going to do it, because there would not be much applause for that. It is a ridiculous suggestion that we go to that sort of facility at suburban ovals, where the usage levels are so high. That is a silly question - - -
Mr Wood: A good answer, though.
MR BERRY: A good answer; but it is a silly comparison. How can you compare a facility which is designed for much lower usage with the sort of high-use facility you provide at a suburban oval, where hundreds upon hundreds of people stream through?
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