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The icing on the cake for the Liberals is the business sector out there waiting to see what the Liberals are going to do with their first budget. “Sorry; it is too hard; we cannot do it yet; we are going to have to wait a while.” What are the local business men and women going to do in the face of that? Of course, they are going to sit pat and say, “We are not going to advertise to employ people, because we do not know what the future holds”. They know that we have a government here with all sorts of rhetoric, very little noticeable substance, lots of question marks, and a few cover-ups; but they do not know what the outcomes are going to be. The end result is that the jobless here in the ACT are in more trouble. Job advertisements across this Territory have fallen 18 per cent, and the Liberals have the hide to call this a matter of public importance - “How two Labor Governments contrived to destroy the ACT economy”. What that should read is, “How the Liberal Government, inside three months, has been able to frighten off business in the Territory and lead to a position where, in the outmonths from here on in, there are big questions about the employment opportunities in the Territory”.

I repeat myself in relation to the Federal Government’s performance. On any measure in terms of the performance on jobs we have this decline in unemployment and, of course, there is increasing employment.

Mr De Domenico: Tell us about the sale of the Commonwealth Bank.

MR BERRY: Mr De Domenico asked me what I thought about the Commonwealth Bank. I do not know whether he has noticed or not, but he has been there for a few months. The ACT Government does not own it. I am focused on what is going on in the ACT. I was elected in the ACT to represent ACT people. We are going to make sure that we continue to be focused on that issue.

I will go over those issues again. The first is the failed negotiations with the Commonwealth at COAG. It is no wonder that there are some dispirited business people out there, because they know that under a Labor government we were able to secure $30m worth of assistance. Now there is only $15m worth of assistance. They know that the money is going to have to come from somewhere. They would be saying to themselves, “Is it going to come from us by way of extra taxes?”. In relation to Acton Peninsula, they know that Mrs Carnell has committed the ACT Government to millions of dollars to clear the site. They also know that all of the people who now occupy places on that site are going to have to find other spots. The ACT Government ought to pay for it, but we are not quite clear on whether they will or not. Nobody quite knows that. Nobody has balanced the books; so there is a big question mark in relation to that.

Again, let us go around to Kingston. What is going to happen to the relocated Commonwealth instrumentalities that are there now? Take the Government Printing Office. One assumes that in the scheme of things it will have to go somewhere else. We cannot hang their building on a skyhook. There has to be a space made available to them, and I bet the Commonwealth thinks that we will provide it. How much is that going to cost? Again I ask: How much is the clean-up going to cost? How much is the international competition going to cost? That is what business is saying.

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