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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 597 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The fact is that we do have a commitment from the Federal Government. We do have a budgetary commitment that is being spent now - $750,000 on the development brief. The motion that Ms Tucker has put forward says in part "until the Commonwealth Government makes a definite budgetary commitment". Well, they have. It is being spent right now. Or are we saying that we are going to set the level?

Mr Corbell: That will not build the museum.

Mr Whitecross: A $750,000 building. Beauty!

MRS CARNELL: It is for the development brief. That is a fair amount of money for a development brief, I would have thought. There are significant numbers of people in our Federal Parliament who believe that Canberra should not get the National Museum. I urge everybody in this house not to give them one opportunity to get their own way. It is extremely important.

Mr Whitecross: What a weak argument!

MRS CARNELL: Maybe those opposite do not see it that way. Once you have made a decision that the Acton-Kingston land swap should happen, and this Assembly has - in fact, I think the majority of the P and E Committee has also made such a decision - the museum should go ahead. Why, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, would we put anything in the way of that happening now?

MS McRAE (5.10): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I move the following amendment:

Omit the words "until the full details of the proposed formal contract between the Commonwealth and ACT Governments on the Kingston/Acton land swap are approved by the Assembly, and".

The arguments that Mrs Carnell has just put up are exactly the arguments that I was going to put up as to why the Assembly should support my amendment to the motion. The bottom line is that we do not trust the Federal Government. There is one commitment, and one commitment only, and that commitment is to $750,000. The concern, as encapsulated in my comment in the Canberra Times, is that we do not want to wake up on 14 May, the day after the Federal budget, and discover that there is absolutely no more money, no money has been allocated to the museum and the site has been cleared. It is not in the interests of the ACT. We have wasted $8m. We do not have a museum. We have a rubble site.

The intent of my amendment is quite clear. It will mean, if passed, that this Assembly simply does not trust the Federal Government. It will be up to Mrs Carnell to take this back to Mr Howard and say, "Make your intent good, make it public and make it now". I do not even put a date on my amendment. The intent is that we have the actual commitment of funds, a definite budgetary commitment to proceed. Mrs Carnell says that we have that already. We beg to differ. We do not. We have, purely and simply,

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