Page 2451 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007

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skills, such as art sales and commissioning works are also being looked at. We should congratulate the ACT government, and TAMS, in particular, for the work they are doing on graffiti in the ACT.

MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.28): It is good that the minister for sport and tourism has turned up because I would like to make a few comments on that aspect of the Department of Territory and Municipal Services. Before I do so, I say to Mr Gentleman that he needs to be careful when he describes to the house what is contained on the TAMS website. He said that all the legal graffiti sites are on the website, and that is just not true. If you check, you will not find a number of sites that are supposedly legal graffiti sites. Mr Speaker, I know we all need to tell the house the truth, and perhaps Mr Gentleman should go and check the website. The other point is that a number of the sites are not signposted in compliance with the guidelines. So if you are going to have rules, you have to apply them consistently.

The big issue around town today is the approaching date of 1 November, the possible introduction of the next stage of water restrictions and what will happen to our sporting facilities. This budget has a number of deficiencies in regard to sport. Earlier in the year a large meeting was held at the racecourse which the minister attended. At that meeting, the minister said a large capital works funding pool would be available for sports groups to access so that they could drought-proof their facilities. A number of sports groups have looked at the budget and have said to me that they cannot find the money. They got together; they did their work. Within three months, they had prepared their report to give to Actew so that they could look at it. Groups, in particular hockey and soccer, are complaining that there has been no progress on funding. They looked at the budget; it is just not there.

There are bigger concerns than that. On Monday the 13th there was another meeting which groups were asked to attend to hear about progress. At that meeting the head of TAMS, Mr Zissler, talked about a long-term strategy that TAMS is focusing on. It is a five-year strategy. A consultant will be brought in by the end of the year to commence work on a strategy for a master plan for all sports grounds in the ACT.

I think it is fair to say that those at the meeting were delighted that at last the minister was doing something about looking forward. One of the groups asked a specific question of Mr Zissler—that is, if stage 4 water restrictions were put in place and they stopped watering ovals, would Mr Zissler guarantee that all the ovals would be reinstated. The response was that all grounds would be reviewed, but the department would not guarantee that all grounds would be reinstated. They said if they served little purpose—that is, they were dust bowls; and they are going to be dust bowls because there is no water—an alternative use for the space would be considered.

There is an enormous amount of disquiet among all the sporting groups who are looking at their ovals, who are waiting for 1 November to arrive, and who view the government’s lack of commitment to bringing these ovals back on line as tantamount to phase 2 by Andrew Scissorhands over there, having regard to what he has done with Towards 2020, in knocking off a quarter of our schools. They are afraid that the next document the minister will publish will be called “Towards Oblivion”—the end of sports grounds in the ACT. The minister rolls his eyes and moans and groans, but he can stand up and put the disquiet in the community to rest by guaranteeing that every oval will be reinstated. It is very simple: every oval.


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