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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2858 ..

Mr Kaine: And we have achieved it, $900,000 worth.

MR CORBELL: The Minister says he has achieved it. Half a million dollars for the promotion of Canberra was not given to the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation; half a million dollars for the promotion of Canberra was not given to the one body that this Government set up to promote Canberra in a coordinated fashion. What a dismal effort by this Minister! What an absolutely dismal effort by this Minister! The Minister, I am sure, is going to get up and huff and puff about this issue, but he knows that representatives of the tourism industry in this town are not impressed with the Government's position on this issue. The Minister stands up in front of an audience of tourism industry representatives and says, "Yes, we will give you funding for the promotion of Canberra, we will meet the demands you have", and then they do not do it. They do not give it to the one organisation that they themselves set up to promote Canberra.

I am sure also that the Minister is going to get up and say it was not just for tourism promotion. The Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation was set up to promote Canberra, to promote our city as a destination; basically, to label our city; to say this is an attractive city that has good infrastructure, good people, good attractions, sporting events, cultural events; it has all of those things. That is why the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation was set up.

To suggest that tourism promotion is just about getting visitors here is a very narrow way of looking at it. There is a broader message about promoting our city as an attractive destination, an attractive destination not just for visitors to come here on holiday but for people to come and live here, for people to come and visit here, for people to bring their businesses here, for people to come here to participate in sporting events and cultural events and all of those other events. That is very important and that is what Canberra Tourism should do, and I know that the staff at Canberra Tourism want to do that. That is very important. It is very clear that, if there is one agency in the ACT Government that has been set up to deal with the issue of promoting Canberra, it is the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation. It was set up to ensure that Canberra's business, tourism, sporting and cultural strengths are promoted in the best possible way. I would have thought that the principal promotion body would have been able to do that.

Madam Deputy Speaker, there is another issue I would like to raise, and that is to do with cooperation with the private sector and joint partnerships and ventures with the private sector. The Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation, when it was being set up by this Government, was set up as a corporation so that it would act more like a private sector organisation, so that the industry would be able to relate to it better and so that it would be able to respond to industry's needs in a better way than the old Tourism Commission and its predecessors. That is why it is there. That was why we were making it a corporation. That is what the Minister said in the debate.

Part of the Minister's argument for establishing the corporation was that the corporation could go out and enter into joint ventures with the tourism industry, with the visitor industry in Canberra, with the people who promote our city, with the people who sell our city as a destination; dollar-for-dollar cooperation in some instances, but, all the same,

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