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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 997 ..

MRS CARNELL: Public notification, proper process, and all the rest. The mounds will be put in place, and at this stage the dirt from Bruce Stadium, as we take a few metres off Bruce Stadium, will be used over the top of that. We will have grassed slopes for people to sit on; again, subject to design and siting approval and subject to public notification. It would seem to me to be a good idea.

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 3 o'clock, in accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier this day, I call the Treasurer, Mrs Carnell.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.00): Mr Speaker, I present the Appropriation Bill 1997-98, together with its explanatory memorandum and associated budget papers. Later this afternoon I will be presenting the ownership agreements and the purchase agreements relating to my portfolios. Other Ministers will also be presenting the purchase agreements relating to their portfolios.

Title read by Clerk.

MRS CARNELL: I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, of the nine budgets that have been brought down since self-government, this is, without doubt, the most important, because it comes at a time when we as Canberrans are facing the biggest challenge that this city has ever had to confront. In the past 14 months our economy, our Public Service and our business community have taken a beating from the Commonwealth. Times have indeed been tough for Canberrans. The budget I am announcing today responds to the recession we are now in. But it is also a budget that charts the course we need to follow if we are to prevent this kind of economic downturn from striking us so hard again.

Complaining about the effect that the Federal Government's policies have had on Canberra is one thing. Actually doing something about it is the challenge that all of us need to embrace. There is no quick fix; but, if anyone out there still thinks that we can rely on the Commonwealth for growth in our economy, then the past year has demonstrated that this notion is dead. We have to stand on our own two feet if we are to remain one of Australia's best places in which to live and work. Change is not merely an option. It is a necessity.

The current economic downturn is directly attributable to the massive reductions in both spending and employment by Canberra's largest employer, the Commonwealth. It is a reflection of the reliance of our economy on the Commonwealth public sector. We must diversify our employment and investment base and establish a more vibrant private sector so that the ACT never catches an economic cold again when the Commonwealth sneezes. To do otherwise would be to condemn our national capital to a decade of stagnation.

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