Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1173 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Okay, Mr Moore, I will take the point. John Howard and Andrew Whitecross are in the same boat. Okay, that is fine by me. I am happy not to argue with that. They are on a lower rung on the evolutionary scale than Mrs Carnell. That is fine by me, too. I am not going to disagree with that comment.

I must say that I found a couple of comments made by Mr Whitecross quite amazing. One was his attack on the approach we have taken towards job creation programs. He said, and I think I pretty well paraphrase precisely what he said, "We will not be focusing on funding business or tourist promotion".

Ms McRae: No, that is not what he said.

MR HUMPHRIES: I think that is pretty well what he said when he rose some minutes ago. Mr Speaker, it does seem to me to be strange to have Mr Corbell a few weeks ago hoeing into the present Government for not funding tourist promotion and then to have Mr Whitecross attacking us for doing exactly what Mr Corbell urged us to do. That does leave me a little bit puzzled. Perhaps Ms McRae could interject across the chamber and tell us what they want to do. Do they believe in investing in tourist promotion or not investing in tourist promotion?

Ms McRae: You will find out sooner rather than later from the sound of it.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will take that interjection. Yes, we will find out, but it will not be sooner; it will be later.

Mr Kaine: And the answer is yes and no.

Mr Stefaniak: All of the above.

MR HUMPHRIES: The answer is yes and no, and all of the above. Mr Speaker, we have no blueprint to follow. The electorate of the ACT has no blueprint to follow from those opposite, and we should accept that.

We are going to get $5m more for job creation programs, but apparently Labor's programs will not be directed towards the private sector. They will be directed towards creating jobs in the public sector. That is the only other sector there is, so presumably it is going to be in the public sector. Obviously, $5m spent in the public sector has to mean $5m spent on actually creating full-time complete jobs. You cannot get a subsidy in the public sector because the money is already allocated, and you cannot encourage people through incentives to spend more if they do not have it already in some other area of public sector expenditure. So, obviously, what follows from that is that jobs created in the public sector are more expensive than the ones created in the private sector. I would like some more information about this. What Mr Whitecross is saying is that he has plans for fewer jobs being created with $5m than we would be able to create by spending the same amount of money in the private sector.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .