Page 645 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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Politicians or governments are not the solution; in a great number of cases they are the problem. I make the point that those people who have allowed this situation to happen - in other words, all of us in the general public - do bear the supreme responsibility in the area. Mr Speaker, we can do things. We can make the ACT a safe place for business. We can reduce taxes. We can have them coming in here from other States; they would love the place. What about a haven from exorbitant government charges? And we can educate youth towards responsibility, not what can they get. Mr Speaker, unemployment is not working.
DR KINLOCH (5.06): First of all, I would like to endorse Mr Kaine's comments about the general economic situation. That is obviously the big disaster that we are all facing. We cannot sell our wool and wheat. We have to get back to an economic position where we can do that. We are in the middle of a ghastly war where money is being spent on missiles, tanks and all that kind of thing, when it could more properly be working in a world economy. When that world economy revives, then this economy will revive and employment will revive.
But, even in the midst of this crisis, I have had the experience this year of spending some time in Singapore. I am not going to defend the Singapore Government, which has the kind of government that the ACT would have, if we had single member electorates. Although I do not defend that kind of government - - -
Mr Connolly: Run that one past us again.
DR KINLOCH: The Singapore Government has something like 67 to one; I forget the exact numbers. I want to say that, despite any negative comments that one may make about the Government of Singapore, one has to say - and here I would endorse Mr Stevenson's comment - that they have there a very great determination from what used to be thought of as a socialist government - but I must say that it looks like a capitalist government to me - to create a working economy out of that extraordinary society.
Singapore is one-quarter the size of the ACT physically. It has anywhere from two-and-a-half to three million people. They have no natural resources on that island, but what they do have is a determination as a nation to be an elite economic unit. They put very great stress on education of all kinds, from the so-called highest education to education for people at the lower levels of the work force. I am very glad indeed to note Mr Wood's comments about the degree to which students are going back to repeat year 12. We should encourage that. We should encourage as many people as possible to stay with TAFE. It should be our joy, as we are moving in this direction, to have as great a percentage of our young people in education as possible. I hope that, by maintaining the excellence of the Australian National University as a separate entity, an
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