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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 212 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Certainly, we have yet to implement all of our promises. Heavens, we have been here for 12 months. Ms Follett, in her document, has made some absolutely fascinating statements like, "You naughty government, you did not implement 50 per cent betterment". Let us; we will do it. We will do it tomorrow, if this Assembly will let us do it. Comments about the police budget are simply misleading, and I am sure that Mr Humphries will talk about that later.

The comment about nursing homes suggested that we promised two new nursing homes. We did. One will open in Page later this year. Instead of getting rid of Jindalee and selling the land, as Mr Connolly wanted us to do, for residential purposes, and building a new one, we determined, in the interests of the residents who are there at this stage and who treat Jindalee as their home, after consulting with them, that it was a substantially nicer idea to keep the current site. So, yes, we do have two nursing homes. There is one at Page, and we are keeping Jindalee rather than relocating it somewhere else. Why did we do that? Because it was in the interests of the community to do so. We have organised the sale of Jindalee Nursing Home. That had been suggested and recommended by Assembly committees, by any number of groups, all the way through; but it was a tough decision, Mr Speaker, and that is why those opposite never took it.

Coming to government with zero in the bank, with no money whatsoever, with reducing funding from the Commonwealth and with ACT taxpayers already paying at the same sorts of levels as in other States is difficult, but we are making those decisions. We are not sitting on our hands. It is not easy, as we see right at the moment with the industrial situation, but we will continue to do it. We will continue to create jobs. We will continue to encourage business into this city. We will continue down the track of revamping our health system so that we can do something better than just 107 reductions in the waiting list since we came to office and so that we really can address those issues; but to do it we need the cooperation of this whole Assembly. We need to take the hard decisions and we need to stop being wimps.

MR WOOD (4.12): Mr Speaker, let me acknowledge that I have no doubt that the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister are in regular contact with the ACT business community. They are, after all, fellow travellers, and fair enough. They will not talk to the unions, but they will talk to the business community. I wonder whether the chief and her deputy would get up in this Assembly and tell us all what that business community is saying to them when they come through their door or when they meet them at social functions.

Rosemary Follett said, and the Chief Minister also said it a short time ago, that this is a very sluggish economy. That is not just Rosemary Follett's view. It is not just Mrs Carnell's view. It is the view, as we read, of Denis Page. I expect that the people opposite know Mr Page, the chairman of the Canberra Business Council. He said that business confidence in the ACT was at its worst.

What about the business confidence survey the results of which were issued in December 1995 by the same Canberra Business Council after a very long survey of Canberra businesses? The results showed a noticeable decrease in business confidence since the previous survey in January 1995. Forty-two per cent of respondents believed that the business environment was either marginally or considerably worse in comparison

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