Page 3080 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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in the ACT by the Federal Government in its budget, pick up some of the shortfall in that area and keep the members of organisations and groups like the BWIU in work. As Mr Kaine has already said, one person in work provides a job for another four.
I think, Mr Speaker, that the comments made by Mrs Grassby, both in the house and in her report, are, quite frankly, specious and do not take into account the realities of the proper operation of a capital works budget that we see from this Alice in Wonderland Government opposite.
MR DUBY (5.05): Mr Speaker, the capital works program as proposed by the Follett Government is in many ways a great example of sleight of hand. There is no question that the Government is trying to address the economic problems facing the Territory at the moment by taking money out of the capital works program and ploughing it into the recurrent expenditure side of the budget.
Mr Jensen: That is a bankcard mentality.
MR DUBY: Yes, indeed; that is a bankcard mentality. Not only that, it fails to take into account the figures which have been well documented and which the other speakers - Mr Kaine and Mr Jensen - have pointed out. A decline in the capital works program of some $17m in this financial year, by my calculations and using the figures put out by the MBA and the BWIU, indicates that there will be a decline of something like 160 jobs in the building industry and well over 600 jobs in the ACT economy generally. As we have seen, the ratio, as supplied by the BWIU, is that for every building job there are four others dependent upon it. To me it is not commonsense to be reducing - - -
Ms Follett: It is not what it says in here either.
MR DUBY: It certainly is, Ms Follett. It says in paragraph 3.2 that a $110m decline in the building industry generally, taking into account private factors, the private sector, will mean a loss of some 900 jobs. Therefore, your reduction of $17m, or approximately one-sixth of that figure, will mean a loss of something like 160 or 150 jobs in the building industry. For each job in the building industry the BWIU admits that there are four jobs dependent on it. That means that, by your own admission and by your decline in the capital works program of some $17m, you are condemning something like 600 people in the ACT to be out of work. It is there in paragraphs 3.2, 3.4 and 3.3, Ms Follett. You can read it yourself.
Ms Follett: I have. It is rubbish.
MR DUBY: That is what it says. Are you disputing the BWIU figures?
Ms Follett: I am disputing the MBA figures.
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