Page 3097 - Week 14 - Thursday, 7 December 1989
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We will provide adequate resources to the ACT Treasury to ensure that tax avoidance and evasion are minimised and to improve the effectiveness of tax assessment and collection. We will expand the revenue base of the Territory by encouraging development, including the stimulation of high-technology industries, tourism and small business.
We will review the capital works program to ensure that all projects included in it are consistent with community requirements and priorities and that they can be accommodated within the five-year financial plan. We must achieve growth in the private sector and acknowledge that, as time goes on, it will become the predominant source of increasing revenues and increasing job opportunities.
A major contribution by government to this required economic growth can and must be to provide a stable economic and financial climate, to permit the making of business and investment decisions with some degree of certainty in terms of the intentions of government.
Planning and development, along with the environment, are an integral part of the economic well-being of the Territory. Here we have to ensure that there is a balance. Maintenance and enhancement of our habitat are necessary, and caution must be exercised to ensure the preservation of our forests; the maintenance of the general amenity of Canberra deriving from our open-space planning; the preservation of our heritage assets; the regulation of the transportation, use and disposal of hazardous and toxic materials, the disposal generally and recycling where possible of all waste products. It is necessary that we address all these issues.
Closely associated with these environmental issues is that of the continuing growth of the city of Canberra and the issues associated with that growth, issues such as the proper and controlled planning of the city centre; the dispersal of business and commercial activity across the regions of Belconnen, north and south Canberra, Woden, Weston and Tuggeranong; the construction of supporting road networks, urban redevelopment and further expansion into Gungahlin. All of these issues will be addressed and a new city plan will be developed, keeping the balance between competing interests and upholding the rights of the people.
There are those who do not wish to see Canberra expand. Unfortunately, Canberra cannot be retained as it was in 1969, or 1979, nor can it be frozen at the 1989 level, much as we may wish to do so. Our task is to ensure that the future growth of Canberra is properly planned, as past growth generally has been, and the development is controlled, orderly, and acceptable. We have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to the entire Australian community to retain standards appropriate to the national capital and the seat of government. We must balance the needs and aspirations of this community with those of the wider one.
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