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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2181 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

I was pleased to announce earlier this month that we had in-principle agreement with the Brazilian team for 280 Brazilian athletes and support staff to base their training in Canberra for six weeks prior to the Olympics, from August to September in the year 2000. As well as that, of course, there will be a number of trips by people coming to Canberra from Brazil in the lead-up to the games. In fact, Mr Speaker, in August this year we are expecting 35 people from Brazil as a lead technical team. Brazil is just one of the several sporting nations that have been targeted by our Project 2000 Task Force, and I can advise the Assembly that we are negotiating with other Olympic teams to establish training and pre-games competition bases in Canberra. One of those that had some profile recently was the French team. The benefit to the ACT economy of just one team, the Brazilian team, will be many millions of dollars, Mr Speaker. This agreement has also signalled to the rest of Australia and to the world that Canberra has been recognised as a centre of sporting excellence with world-class facilities and leading edge sports science, technology and medical facilities.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the staff of Project 2000, the team at the Australian Institute of Sport, the ACT Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing, ACTSport and everybody else who has been part of achieving this result, Mr Speaker. But, in handing out a few bouquets, Mr Speaker, I think it is absolutely essential to hand out a few brickbats as well; in fact, six of them, Mr Speaker, to those opposite.

Mr Whitecross: I wonder to whom. What a surprise!

MRS CARNELL: You should not be surprised, Mr Whitecross, because you have done everything in your power to jeopardise everything we have attempted to achieve in this area. I refer back to a report tabled in this Assembly in February 1996 which outlined the potential economic benefits of the Olympics to the Canberra region. That paper emphasised how the Government needed to act decisively instead of sitting back and waiting around for something to happen. We got off our bottoms, Mr Speaker, and we got serious about marketing this city, about raising its profile nationally and internationally and talking to key organisations and individuals wherever they may be.

What has the Labor Party been doing for those two years, Mr Speaker? Absolutely nothing but whingeing and knocking everything we have attempted to do with regard to the Olympics.

Ms McRae: Prove it.

MRS CARNELL: I will. I will go on to prove it, Ms McRae. I wonder whether Mr Whitecross, who seems to be a fair-weather sport supporter - when teams are winning he seems to be there, Mr Speaker - has any idea of what will happen to Canberra's profile if the Brazilian Olympic soccer team comes to this city. I guess not. Thinking back to the teleconference I had with Carlos Nuzman from the Brazilian Olympic Committee, he made it clear that one of the reasons why they were attracted to using Canberra as their base was my visit to Brazil in early 1996.

Ms McRae: Oh, sure; and you believed them.

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