Page 2511 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 1994
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Mr Humphries: "Mrs Integrity", he was going to say.
MR LAMONT: No, "Mrs Intention", because that is all it ever is - intention and no substance. Getting back to the substance of Mr Stevenson's call for greater assistance and opportunity, I am very pleased to be the Minister responsible for EPIC, formerly called Natex, formerly called the Showground, and its initiatives to locate a permanent facility in the ACT called Ecotext. This would start off in a showplace way for environmentally sensitive and environmentally advantageous industry to display its wherewithal, to display its inventions, to display its hardware and software, but also to provide a national and international focus for such activity.
As you would appreciate, Mr Stevenson, for a number of these considerations you would need to have ongoing operation of that display. To have something there for a fortnight may not be in the interests of that business; but to be able to show that it has developed over a long period of time, and is capable of getting a long-term analysis and assessment which justifies what in a lot of cases is substantial expenditure for equipment purchases and so on, is necessary in this field. Ecotext will provide that focus, and the focus will be at EPIC. As the Minister, I have a great deal of satisfaction in supporting the board of EPIC and its chief executive, Clive Scollay, in pursuing the matter of the ongoing Ecotext exhibition. They are to be congratulated for taking that initiative.
In addition to that, we need to look at what the Government does in relation to these matters. There is probably no better example of what government agencies do than what the ACT Electricity and Water Authority are responsible for in terms of development of environmentally responsible management systems in the water and electricity areas. Suffice it to say that they are now not only nationally but also internationally regarded as one of the keenest exponents of the use and development of environmentally friendly technologies. Their engineers and executive are recognised by our own Federal Government as being at the leading edge. On a recent business delegation to Asia, the chair of ACTEW was asked to lead that part of the delegation that talked about and was there to represent Australia's interests in environmentally sustaining technologies. I think we are heading in the right direction. We can always say that we should do more, and I think matters of public importance such as this help to focus our attention on the fact that we can do more.
MR STEFANIAK (4.37): I hope that we are heading in the right direction, although some figures Mrs Carnell mentioned indicate that there is a lot of work we need to do down that track. Investment opportunities have increased by 6 per cent in the rest of Australia and decreased by 8 per cent here. As she quite correctly says, we need to do a lot more to encourage business to locate here. We have a very limited tax base, which I think this Government is finding out, as have all governments since self-government, and we need to encourage business, not discourage it.
Everyone in this Assembly, I am sure, agrees that the environment is crucial and that environmentally friendly and energy saving new businesses should be supported in Canberra. The environment is of crucial significance when looking to establish a business here. But there is, as Mr Stevenson and my colleague and leader, Mrs Carnell, have said,
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