Page 3581 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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Had I not taken action to address this, I would have been subject, I believe quite rightly, to criticism for allowing it to just go on unchecked, and I said this could not happen. I then sought, in discussion with my officers, ways in which the overspend could be addressed. It is necessary for folks to understand the nature of that overspend.
I will say this much at this point: I have briefed Ms Bresnan on this issue, and I have briefed Mr Doszpot on this issue. But I am very pleased that the question has come forward so that I can answer it on the record here. The major reasons for the overspend were the withdrawal of sponsorship of around the $200,000 mark. There was also the expansion of the festival into the Glebe Park area. Without going into exact figures, there was about $100,000, and it was attributed to additional security, additional toilets, additional rubbish collection, additional power and the additional price for hiring the tents, stage and technical areas in that particular part of the world.
The application of funds is coming out of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. In a sense, that is part of the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services. The reason why we are doing that is just to finalise the contract. It is my intention to transfer the budget and the contract, with the Chief Minister’s agreement—and that has yet to be finalised—to artsACT because this is an arts activity, Ms Bresnan.
One of the issues that we faced when we looked at it was in fact the inability of the fringe to account for the moneys; they were supposed to have accounted for their expenditure and their revenue by March this year. That is still to be done. I am concerned that the administration, the production of these things, sits with people who are not skilled to do it. It should be in place with people who are skilled in administering the performing arts, and I believe that the Folk Festival has the infrastructure to do just that, and that has been a large part of the influence on us placing it in that particular position.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Bresnan, a supplementary question?
Mr Coe: The committee? What do you think? Joy, Mary—how was the meeting last night?
Mr Hanson: A good meeting?
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hanson and Mr Coe, I am tired of hearing your voices today. You are just coming across too high. Let’s tone it down.
MS BRESNAN: How was the decision to shift the fringe funding to the National Folk Festival informed by the views of this year’s performers and audiences?
MR HARGREAVES: “Not in the least” is the answer to Ms Bresnan’s question. What did inform the decision to do that was that the amount of $960,000 was far too much. My understanding of crowd numbers in terms of value for the money of a dollar expended is that the fringe cost was not $55,000, as people would have us believe. In fact, the cost of artists was around that figure—and an amount of $7,000 for the person engaged as the fringe director to the Multicultural Festival. The whole
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