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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 216 ..

MR DE (continuing):

Have we delivered on that? Yesterday, Mr Speaker, as members of this Assembly will recall, I set out the guidelines of the red tape task force after we had the red tape task force review.

We also talked about trading hours. Trading hours are perhaps the most difficult issue that any government of any political persuasion is going to face in this Territory. Did we sit on our hands and do nothing? No, of course we did not. Notwithstanding that hard decisions need to be made, we still established the trading hours review. That issue is now being looked into in conjunction with the Ibecon study and in conjunction with the social impact study, and there will be more said about that very shortly. Did we sit on our hands and do nothing? Of course we did not, because we made the community a promise, and what we promise we deliver.

Let us have a look at payroll tax. Ms Follett stood up and said that it was a Labor Party policy. What nonsense!. Who can recall what Labor Party politicians, State and Federal, said about payroll tax when the former leader of the Liberal Party, Dr John Hewson, was trying to get rid of it? They all screamed and jumped and shouted and said, "Of course you cannot do that". What did this Government do? On election to office we made a promise that the threshold would go from $500,000 to $600,000 from 1 January this year. It goes up to $800,000 the year after. That was not done by this mob either. Why? Because they sat on their hands. They did not know what to do about anything.

Let us have a look at business incentive. I recall that three years ago, when we were in opposition and this mob over there were in government, they did not know what the IT industry was about. We had to send former Deputy Chief Minister David Lamont to a place called Auspace in Mitchell which he did not even know existed. Mr Lamont at least did some forward thinking and, to his great credit, he saw their potential and gave them a grant. Well done! What was the grant? It blew out the total incentive scheme, $200,000, all in one go. What have we done? We have increased that to $800,000. On top of that, we have provided a business incentive package. What has that done, Mr Speaker? AOFR, a company of international repute in the high-tech area, is coming to town and taking 11 blocks of land in our industrial estate at Symonston. There is the potential for 200 to 300 new jobs right here in the ACT. That was done within 12 months of being elected to government - another promise delivered.

We talked about CanTrade. We were blasted all over the place, with out opponents saying, "You cannot deliver on that". We have delivered. CanTrade has met three or four times, given out some money and some grants for things like international golf tournaments, international hockey tournaments, all sorts of things bringing in money and tourists; attracting people to the ACT in the private sector and attracting business to the ACT. That is another promise that we delivered. Let us have a look at the tourism development strategy. We said that we would develop a tourism development strategy. We have done that. We said that we would produce a new high-class commercial to advertise the ACT. We have done that as well. We talked about the potential we have in our airport. Notwithstanding the fact that it is difficult for people opposite to do deals even with their own mates up there on the hill, we have sat down with even the Federal Labor Government. We now have a task force headed by Air Marshal Jim Bomball looking into the potential of the Canberra Airport for the future of the people of the ACT.

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