Page 3468 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 14 November 2006
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and a lot of commitment into a high-quality library service and I am totally committed to that end process.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.18): I have got to say that I am a bit biased about libraries. I probably would not be here if it had not been for the Bacchus Marsh library. I know some people might not think that would be a bad thing. I was a bookworm from an early age and used to ride down to the library pretty well every day after school and borrow at least one or two books and I had read them by the next day. I did not grow up in a home that had many books, and I just want to put that on the record. I have a bias, but I think that library made me who I am today.
Libraries do have a different role in our society. When I was a kid, it was books. We all know that now libraries are where many people connect with all the information technology, all the ways there are of getting information in our world. I have read many, many things about the impact of globalisation on our library service and I understand the pressures on the ACT government that have led to this decision. But it is like the school closures; I say to them, and I will say it again: where is that functional review that says you have to cut this much money? Why not take the community along with you and decide where those cuts should be?
I am sick of hearing Mr Hargreaves and other ministers say, “Well, what would you do?” I will tell you what I would do. I would go to the community and say, “If we are going to have cuts, where are they going to be? If you are going to make a cut, would you make an announcement one month before it is closed?” There are still people going to that library who do not know it is going to close. If you saw a library that perhaps was not being used as much as another, you might say, “Is this library fulfilling this community’s needs? How can we get maximum use out of it?” That is what you would do if you were committed as a government.
Libraries, in our society that values learning, can become lifelong learning centres, and I know from our own documents that that is what the ACT wants to be—a learning city. It is especially important in an ageing society where people cannot get around much and where so many people are isolated. We live in a world where the infrastructure of learning, knowledge and information has become very complex and expensive. Not everyone can afford to have it. Every one of you will know how much you spend per month just on your internet—and then there is the computer, the software and everything else. We cannot all afford it.
This closure was announced with one month’s notice and as far as I can see there has been no attempt to consult the users and say, “We are closing this library. What can we do that gives you those services that you are losing with this library?” The government did not even have the courage—is it courage, is it consideration?—to do that.
Our library network is interconnected, so it is no wonder that someone from Evatt might write because they care about the Griffith library. Even if they do not use the Griffith library, they have every right to be concerned that it is closing. But what I have learned from talking to people involved in the campaign is that a lot of people go to the Griffith library just because they are going to the Griffith shops to buy their organic vegetables there, if they are that kind of person, because they are going to
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