weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

23 Aug 2005 Racing Venues Development Amendment Bill 2603
popular and doing well on the Gold Coast. They developed one particular area. I knew the secretaries
who ran the Gold Coast Show Society and greyhound racing during the time I was general manager of
the Toowoomba Showgrounds and the Toowoomba Greyhound Racing Club. They had a very good
secretary of the greyhound racing club down there who ran it very successfully.
Mr SPEAKER: You were quite good yourself. I remember you came to Mount Isa once.
Mr HORAN: That is right. I was brought up to Mount Isa to have a look at the possible relocation
of the showground. It was a very enjoyable visit. I remember it well.
With changing times there is a need for race club venues—and in this case the harness racing
club and the greyhound racing club on the Gold Coast—to be profitable and well used. I think it is very
important to make good use of venues. Today showgrounds are used for many things. The Toowoomba
Showgrounds has hundreds of events every year like home shows, motor shows, various indoor and
outdoor events, horse shows, dog shows, hobby and craft shows, family reunions and other receptions.
The list goes on. That makes good use of the venue rather than it being left idle throughout the year.
When we moved the Toowoomba Showgrounds from the centre of city, where it was partly deed
of grant in trust and partly freehold, a bill went through parliament called the Toowoomba Showgrounds
Act. We had to convert the 245 acres that we bought for the new showgrounds from freehold to a deed
of grant in trust. I believe those deeds of grant in trust are a very good title. Generally they are for suchand-such
show society and show society purposes. That term ‘show society purposes’ enables them to
stage various events which raise funds for the venue.
That is what will happen in this particular case. The deed of grant in trust in this case is for the
purposes of the Parklands Gold Coast Trust. It believes that it is not explicit enough to cover it for the
many other events that it runs there. Therefore, it believes that it needs to have this particular piece of
legislation to give clarity and enable the Governor in Council to make decisions on what can and cannot
be run there.
There has to be strong protection of the fact that the original core business of this site related to
the show society, the harness racing club and the greyhound racing club. Any events put on there
should be put on by the trust specifically to raise funds to be able to continue to maintain and develop
that site to its absolute maximum. Then it will not simply be the harness racing club, the greyhound
racing club and the show society that bear the brunt of the costs for improvement and so forth.
As other members have said, the Big Day Out was held there. Those sorts of events can bring in
money that enables the further capital development of a site. It is useful to the people of that area. It is
also important for the ongoing maintenance and repairs and continual good looks of the place such as
the gardens, the drainage and roads. For that reason, I think this is very important.
This bill refers particularly to Parklands. Most other racetracks, particularly those in southern
Queensland, have in recent years been transferred from a trust arrangement to a freehold arrangement.
I know that happened specifically in the case of Toowoomba, Ipswich, Doomben, Gatton and others. In
the case of the Toowoomba Turf Club it was freehold. In the 1940s the committee feared being sued. It
handed it over to the government to be leased back as a trust for the protection of the committee at the
time. In recent times things have changed so it is freehold again. If I could slip one thing in about the
Toowoomba Turf Club: one of its innovations for patrons—this is about patrons—is that it has introduced
narrowband radio coverage so that the people of Toowoomba and surrounding areas are able to get
coverage 24 hours a day from the TAB radio station. That is an excellent service. It is very innovative. I
compliment it on that.
Having run a showground that was under a DOGIT, I know that it is virtually as good as freehold
because it actually specifies what a place can be used for and that it cannot be used for anything other
than that. It was Bob Katter in the past who brought in the DOGIT to some of the Aboriginal
communities, because it gave them security of title for the particular reason of them living there and that
being their community. In the same way, the DOGITs that apply to show societies are for show society
purposes. The one that applies to Parklands is for the purposes of parklands. This bill clarifies that if any
other types of events are put on at this place there is a proper head of agreement or principle under
which those other events can be run there.
The point that the shadow minister made is a good point: we must never forget that the purpose
of those grounds, and the reason funds were put into those grounds, was the Gold Coast Show, the
harness racing club and the greyhound racing club. That is the core reason for the existence of that
ground and why the funds were put in there in the first place. I think it was Russ Hinze who developed
that ground when he was the minister. Those three things were the core reason for that. Times change
with history and so forth, but if those three entities want to run their particular sport and recreation that
should be the abiding principle and the cornerstone of that trust arrangement.
The shadow minister was saying that he would like to see in this bill—and he will be moving
an amendment in this regard—a guarantee that if something massive comes up the trust cannot very
easily overrun the dates or the arrangements for one of those particular events. It could have been in the
past that the Beatles or someone of that nature wanted to come out and suddenly the trust would say,
‘This will make so much money that we’re better off to put that on and stop having the Gold Coast Cup