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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2970 ..

MR WOOD (5.54): Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Humphries for the indication he made. This legislation will now say that we will appoint these committees. I expect that they will be appointed fairly soon and that there will be no undue delay on those appointments. The time of this Assembly is running out, although I anticipate that the Minister, who already has a great body of names in front of him, will be moving to fill these positions by the time of the next sitting.

Amendments agreed to.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for Arts and Heritage) (5.55): I move:

Page 13, line 17, Schedule 2, subclause 2(2), omit the subclause, substitute the following subclause:

"(2) Before appointing a person under subclause (1), the Minister shall endeavour to ensure that the following areas of expertise are represented amongst the appointed members:

(a) experience consisting of working in a cultural or heritage field;

(b) knowledge of financial grants problems related to cultural or heritage matters.".

Mr Speaker, this is about ensuring that the corporation's board has on it people from a range of experiences, but particularly experience in actually working in a cultural or heritage field, such as an arts practitioner of some sort, and experience or knowledge of financial grants programs, such as is involved in the administration of the Cultural Council. So, people having those experiences should be on the board. I indicate that I will support the amendment that has been circulated by Ms Tucker to make that mandatory rather than merely suggestive.

MS TUCKER (5.56): I move:

Proposed new subclause 2(2), omit "endeavour to".

This amendment is to remove the words "endeavour to" from the clause Mr Humphries just referred to. It just makes it a little bit tighter and hopefully will ensure that the membership of that committee will indeed reflect the broad cross-section that was certainly the wish of the community members who have spoken to us and that there is a fairly clear indication in the legislation that the preference is that people from the cultural and heritage groups be represented in that membership.

There is one other issue I would like to raise. I would like Mr Humphries, in his wrapping-up speech - I hope that he is listening - to confirm for the Assembly what he said to us at the round table. On the matter of the register of people interested in membership, Mr Humphries said that he would be very prepared to hold such a register and keep it updated. So, I hope that Mr Humphries can confirm that for us in this debate.

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