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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4633 ..

Mrs Carnell: It is here.

MS HORODNY: No, Mrs Carnell. Perhaps you should read that. That is not a consultancy report on how to - - -

Mrs Carnell: Yes, it is. It is about setting the scene, what a strategic plan is, why we need a strategic plan, how long we are planning for.

MR SPEAKER: Ms Horodny, you cannot expect not to have interjections if you encourage them. Would you get on with your comments.

MS HORODNY: You are right, Mr Speaker. As I was saying, it would be a very good idea for a supposedly important document to get the formula right, to research how we ask the people of the ACT what they want. The people of the ACT really deserve some respect and dignity on this issue. It is the people of the ACT who have to carry this strategic plan. They have to believe in this document. They have to believe that it is going to deliver something. There is no way that anyone would have any faith in this document or its ability to deliver anything real in the ACT.

The other thing that you need to understand is that, if you ask the community to look at what the needs are of the ACT and ask the community to prioritise them, you will find that the community do not just ask for a whole lot of things that they know cannot be paid for. If you give people respect, you will find that they understand very well that there are economic realities; that there is a bottom line; that we do not have a bottomless bucket of money out there to work with. If you take into account what people have to say, you might even find - in fact, you probably will find - if you ask people where they think this money would come from - some very creative ideas and some very real solutions, including trade-offs to do with taxes and other fees in the ACT.

Mrs Carnell's mantra at the moment is the economic future of the ACT. Her other mantra is jobs at absolutely any cost. There are no conditions ever on that, Mrs Carnell. Yet there is supposed to be ecological sustainability. We are supposed to have social sustainability. All we hear about is this mantra, "Jobs at any cost". There is no concern from Mrs Carnell regarding what we do in creating jobs. What sorts of businesses do we want to attract? Any sort at all? Are we very happy to accept any sort of polluting, degrading industries in the ACT? Will we start accepting waste from other cities? Is that what we are prepared to do? If it is any sort of business, then there are no restrictions. You have put no guidelines down. You have never said that we want quality jobs; that we want jobs that are ecologically sustainable. Mrs Carnell, if we truly wanted a sustainable city, then we could start with some real secondary resource recovery. We could have our recycling estate, instead of burying our resources at the landfill.

This document has not been a joint exercise. It is a bit of a charade for Mrs Carnell to say that it has been a joint exercise when we do not see any evidence of the Commonwealth Government supporting it or in any way endorsing any of the contents of the document. I understand fully that we are suffering economic hardships in the ACT.

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