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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (20 October) . . Page.. 3381 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

As Mr Humphries quite correctly pointed out, this report is structured as last year's report was, despite the fact that points were clearly made that last year's report could well mislead people or could well provide people with a misinterpretation of exactly what clubs are providing within the community. Let me refer to some of the content. Let me start with contributions to non-profit organisations that are not included as charities. There is a huge list of them. Beneficiaries have been ACT Emergency Services, ACT Tourism, a myriad of schools, the Canberra Hospital, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Canberra Tourism, the Dickson Festival, the Greek community, the Croatian Folkloric Group, the Lions Club - a service club, as we all know - the Rats of Tobruk, Rostrum, Rotary, the RSPCA, more schools, National Council of Women, Neighbourhood Watch, Skyfire, Tuggeranong Community Festival, Polish Scouts Association, the Woden Special School, War Memorial guides and Weston Creek Community Centre. These are not charitable contributions.

According to the speech that the Treasurer just made, donations to sport amounted to $2m. A further $2.3m in contributions went to category 6, associated organisations. What are they? They are sporting organisations associated with clubs. They are separate bodies from clubs only to satisfy the needs of banks and insurance companies. Then we have the further criticism that says, "The clubs applied it to infrastructure". Guess what some of the infrastructure is. This category includes bowling greens and Wanniassa Oval. The Government used to maintain Wanniassa Oval. Now the Tuggeranong Valley Rugby Union Club maintains it. The burden is off government. Is that a contribution to a sporting facility in the ACT? No. That is a bad thing. That is selfish. It is a contribution to infrastructure. Ainslie Football Club have totally refurbished Ainslie football ground and now maintain it as a facility. Do they use it exclusively? No, they do not. They provide it for other sports.

This document is a distortion of what clubs contribute in this town, and I contend it is a deliberate distortion. We had this debate last year. These points were made last year and could not be refuted then, but we are still doing it. We have an agenda and we are just going to repeat it in the propagandist style until we satisfy our agenda.

The clubs contribute far more than this document claims. The structure of the report does not give the true picture, whether it is the Government's fault or whether it is the clubs' fault. There are a whole raft of bowling clubs that maintain bowling greens. They are maintaining their infrastructure and they are providing sport to people in this town. Is that in the report? No. It does not get a mention; it does not get recognition.

Clubs provide very many people in Canberra with a non-threatening, comfortable environment in which they can spend some leisure time. Clubs are reasonably well appointed, well managed and non-threatening. They are one venue that many people of limited means can attend without inordinate expenditure. If the clubs did not exist, if some of them went out of business, then those people would effectively not have any venues to attend.

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