Page 1127 - Week 03 - Thursday, 18 March 2010

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communities by highlighting and promoting cultural diversity and social harmony. A total of $145,000 in funding has been provided to multicultural community groups in this financial year and the next round will open in July this year.

The ACT multicultural radio grants program is also important for our community. Community radio is an important medium for many multicultural groups not only to distribute vital information to their members but also to share their diversity in a forum open to all Canberrans. Under this grants program, a total of $115,000 is available to both community radio stations and multicultural community broadcasters.

The final grants program is the language grants program. The objective of the community languages grants program is to provide assistance to the multicultural community in facilitating projects with a focus on maintaining mother languages. A total of $60,000 has been made available under this program. I am pleased to inform the Assembly that both the 2010 radio grants and the languages grants are open for—(Time expired.)

MR SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, a supplementary?

MR DOSZPOT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, what did this year’s Multicultural Festival cost, how did that compare with the budget and will there be an expanded festival next year to include the fringe festival?

MR SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, the first part of your question—what was the total cost of the 2010 multicultural festival—is on the notice paper. I believe that under the rules of the Assembly you are therefore not allowed to ask it. Would you like to stick to the second half of your question?

MR DOSZPOT: Minister, how did the costing of the festival compare with the budget that you had? And if you came in under budget, are you looking at including a fringe festival for next year in an expanded festival?

Mr Hargreaves: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Firstly, the first part of the question relates to the substance of the question the answer to which will be on the notice paper.

MR SPEAKER: Okay.

Mr Hargreaves: Secondly, this year the fringe festival had nothing to do with the Multicultural Festival; therefore the question is out of order.

Mr Hanson: It does not stop the question. I seek clarification of the question on the notice paper. If that simply asked about the budget, what Mr Doszpot is trying to get to is the differential between the budget, what was in the budget, and the actual cost of the fringe festival, which is a very different question—if there is either an overspend or underspend. Then the second part of that is: does the minister intend to run a fringe festival? I would not have had either of those questions appear on the notice paper.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, briefly on the point of order. Then I am going to rule on it.


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