Page 661 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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That might have been fine in the run-up to the last Federal election when they believed the new messiah - whom they have just taken down and put back up with another doctor. It might have been fine running the line in the doctor's document that it is all doom and gloom, but the facts do not support that. The facts do not support the campaign they ran in the lead-up to the Federal election. They certainly are not supported by the comments that have been made here this afternoon. I suggest that those opposite take off the rose-coloured glasses that they go around the business community with and that they turn up the hearing aids so that they can actually hear what they are being told by the business community, because, when members of the business community talk to people on this side of the chamber and, I suggest, to people in general, they do not express the view which two of the representatives here this afternoon have suggested they do.
So it is a simple fact. It is cheap and easy to score political points. It is harder, and, I believe, beyond those opposite, to come up with concrete proposals as to where failings have occurred or are occurring as far as the strategy that has been adopted by the Government is concerned. They simply cannot do that. They cannot do that because the Government is listening to what business is saying. The Government does not always agree with business - just as it does not always agree with what the trade unions put to it. That was amply outlined by the comment in question time by the Minister for Education in relation to a particular dispute in schools.
The concerns of business are taken notice of. It is about time that the carpers and the knockers on the other side started doing exactly what Kerry Stokes today has implored us all to do; that is, to get out there and sell this city, to sell the Australian Capital Territory as the national capital territory. The continuing carping, knocking and denigration which occurs from those across this chamber is the very thing that is holding back the economy in this Territory - the very thing that people outside the ACT hear about the ACT. It is the negativism of these people that causes some of our problems. If they wish to be constructive in doing something to assist the ACT economy, the suggestion is that they just cut it out. If they have nothing positive to say, if they have nothing positive to contribute, they should sit down and say nothing.
MRS CARNELL (4.39): Mr Deputy Speaker, a number of very interesting comments have been made in this debate, not the least of which being that priorities for the future of the ACT relate not just to the legislative program. However, I think it would be unwise to look past the legislative program totally. For example, in the health arena, the legislative program very definitely shows the total lack of vision and lack of solutions for our very real health problems in the ACT. As Mr Berry ably went through his priorities in health, I think all of us - - -
Mr Wood: As always. He is always able.
MRS CARNELL: He ably went through them. I think everybody who was listening to him, something which I suspect is often very hard to do, would have realised that none of the legislation, with the possible exception of the smoke-free indoor environment legislation - legislation which, of course, we have not seen, so we are not quite sure what he plans to do, although Mr Berry is very well aware that the Liberal Party supports legislation of some description to overcome
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