Page 70 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 April 1992
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I was glad to hear the Chief Minister today articulate that one of her priorities will be employment. It certainly represents an improvement on what she has previously stated about her objectives. Let me remind you. In last year's budget speech, she said:
... I do not believe that progress can be made unless social justice objectives are given the highest priority ...
This is the jargon constantly used by this Government. Their buzz words have been "social justice", "social reform", "fairness" and "equity". These are indeed very important things to achieve. But the way that these words are bandied about by the Government, and by the Chief Minister in particular, to the exclusion of other important concepts, provides a strong indication that the current Government has no appreciation of what the imperatives for Canberra really are.
What are these imperatives? The goal that we must focus on, first and foremost, is economic diversification and jobs. Why? One reason can be drawn from a rewording of the previous quotation. Maybe it should have read, "I do not believe that we can make progress in our social justice objectives unless economic diversification and development are accorded the highest priority"; or, to paraphrase a former New South Wales Premier, "There are three social welfare issues in Australia today, and they are jobs, jobs and jobs".
In one of my shadow portfolio areas, the status of women, the Government's own women's budget statement for 1991-92 hints at a lack of opportunity for women due to our narrow employment base - narrower, incidentally, than for men. This is hardly surprising. Canberra has been a one-industry town. There are other excellent reasons for wanting to promote economic development in a more active way. The ACT must have more immunity from the financial decisions of the Commonwealth. An unacceptable 60 per cent of our funding still comes from Commonwealth grants.
We all know that Commonwealth funding to the ACT is declining and that Canberra bashing seems to have become a national pastime. If we wish to improve the self-sufficiency of the ACT Government in revenues, we could either increase taxes and charges or else have new receipts coming in on the back of a growing and diversifying economic base. I am firmly of the conviction that the latter option is the best. We must foster the growth of the private sector. We certainly can no longer rely on an expanding Commonwealth Public Service to buoy our own prosperity; and, dare I say it, a stronger private sector and a broader economic base would also make Canberra a more diverse, interesting and colourful place in which to live.
The Gungahlin urban village project is a wonderful example of what the private sector can contribute. Here we see a private company willing to invest large sums of money in a project that will undoubtedly save the ACT many millions of dollars in land servicing costs and in the provision of a public transportation system, while at the same time offering Canberrans wider lifestyle choices, not to mention more jobs. The Government's lukewarm response to this project is symptomatic of its poor attitude towards the private sector.
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