Page 3951 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 25 November 2014
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reply: I am very pleased to be here again today debating this bill, and I thank members for their contributions. The Exhibition Park Corporation Repeal Bill 2014 repeals the Exhibition Park Corporation Act 1976 that established the Exhibition Park Corporation as a statutory authority that administers Exhibition Park in Canberra.
This bill will allow for the integration of the functions, staff, assets and liabilities of the corporation into the territory venues and events area of the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate. The government maintains its view that managing EPIC alongside other territory venues is the best way forward for this important asset. As Mr Rattenbury has indicated, this view is indeed supported by the Exhibition Park board.
Mr Rattenbury also indicated that a corporation has obligations that must be met, regardless of its size. It is simply inefficient, Madam Deputy Speaker, to have an entity this small develop its own policies, procedures and business systems to comply with governance and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 requirements, including risk management frameworks and registers, fraud control plans, emergency management plans, business continuity plans, financial systems, asbestos management plans, board and staff codes of conduct, annual reports, statements of intent, strategic plans and WHS policy, and also undertake a separate internal audit and risk management process to consider and monitor risk management audit and fraud activities.
These governance and management matters will need to be addressed after this change, but there is an opportunity for the synergies and efficiencies in developing systems, policies and procedures to apply across the full range of territory venues. As I said when I introduced this bill, integration within the directorate will provide opportunities for streamlining the provision of supplies and services and contract management, and enable the shared used of equipment and resources. This change also provides opportunities to share expertise across territory venues, and it is important for staff working in this area, who get the opportunity now to work across a wider range of event planning, sales and marketing, security, insurance and other management issues.
Repealing the act and integrating the functions into the directorate provides a better match between the governance structure and the way that such facilities are managed for the community. This issue that I have discussed was, of course, the subject of considerable debate and discussion in the public accounts committee annual report hearings. I pointed out then that an unnecessary tension is created when there is a corporation structure which ultimately seeks to return a profit yet is also required to deliver government support for events and activities through concessional access, support which—
Mr Smyth: Then change the arrangements.
MR BARR: They are changing the arrangements, Mr Smyth, quite definitively—it amounted to nearly $700,000 in 2013-14. As I made clear when I introduced the bill, this support will continue into the future. This change has been developed so that it does not impact on the events and activities enjoyed by the community, from very large annual events such as the Royal Canberra Show, the National Folk Festival and
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