Page 1224 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 11 April 2018
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with our world-class research and education institutions, we stand poised to have a long involvement into the future and to play a key role in events that will be looked back on in another 50 and 100 years.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (10.52): I would like to thank members for their in-principle support, and I especially thank Mr Gentleman for knowing my intentions better than I did myself, apparently.
I understand that there has been a round of heritage grants announced, including a focus on Apollo 11. The intention behind bringing forward this motion today was to try to ensure that those who have been most involved in the space tracking industry, for example ex-employees, do not have to apply for grants. We are talking about people in their 80s and 90s. They do not have an organising body. Whilst they have a lot of knowledge, a lot of passion and a lot of good intentions, they do not necessarily have the ability to complete grant applications. My intention here was to suggest that the ACT government should be supporting these activities irrespective of grant applications.
The people that I have spoken to who were ex-employees may have a wish to complete a grant application, but sometimes other activities in their lives—medical appointments, family members going into care and all sorts of things that happen in our lives—take a lot of their time and energy. Whilst they may like to apply for a grant, this might not be feasible for them.
I was just trying to ensure that these people—those who were most involved, are most knowledgeable and are most interested in ensuring that our history and heritage in this area is protected—have an active and valued role to play in determining the activities associated with the anniversary, rather than leaving it to many others, who may have a very valid and passionate interest in the activities but may not be able to draw on the actual life experience of being there at the time at the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station. My intention was to ensure that those who were most involved at the time can also be very involved now in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary, not bystanders to the events that may take place that they may not even be invited to participate in.
I appreciate Mr Gentleman’s amendments. We will support the amendments.
I am extremely keen, as are the ex-employees, to ensure that there is some type of public artwork. With the ACT’s intention to remain involved in the space tracking industry into the future, this is a way to ensure that our boys and girls can see that this is possible. Even if you live in Canberra, you can be deeply involved in this technological advance. For many decades we have seen boys and girls with an aspiration to become an astronaut or to work in the space industry in some way, and it is entirely feasible that this could take place. Having some type of public artwork or monument in a very accessible area of the ACT would be a way to encourage that.
Some people question occasionally the benefit of being involved in space exploration. What some people might not know is that there are many spin-offs, things that have been developed as part of the space exploration industry that we now get the benefit
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