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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4282 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Here it is, Mr Speaker:

Canberra is in transition. It's a transition we have to make. If we don't, then the city will die. This Government has embraced and promoted this transition as a strength so that the next time the Commonwealth sneezes, we don't catch a cold.

I am happy to table this speech for anybody who would be interested in quoting it properly next time, for the interest of members.

I come back to the core issue here. Those opposite are trying to somehow spin a line that the ACT economy is not improving. There are simply no statistics to show that. Just to use the statistics that Ms Reilly just used, in the last set of figures we got housing prices had even started to increase. So all of those figures are showing that the economy has turned around, and in record quick time, taking into account the huge Commonwealth Government downsizing. As I said today, that is happening even with residential building approvals, the area that often is the last to really pick up. Would it not be great if those opposite could just accept that the economy has actually turned around? Even the Evatt Foundation believes that the ACT Government is doing, in their view, a reasonable job. Everybody but those opposite believe that, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Ms Reilly?

MS REILLY: I am not quite sure, from the various similes that are being used, whether we are catching a cold, whether we are having a transition or what, but the question is - - -

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, is this a preamble to a question or is it a question?

MR SPEAKER: No preamble.

MS REILLY: You can tick one. Is that the reason why we have seen a depressed building industry that has seen workers go interstate in search of work? Will you be explaining face to face to these workers, who have to uproot themselves and their families, that it is all in their best interests?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, looking at what is happening in the building area right now, following the recent release of the Nicholls lakeside development at Gungahlin I understand that 54 blocks were sold in four hours. In fact, before the day of the launch of the 90 blocks that were available, 84 were sold. From that developer's perspective it was the best result he had had since 1993. The problem that Mr Humphries and I have at the moment is the number of builders on our doorstep suggesting that maybe we should start thinking about land releases again because land is starting to sell out there. That is probably the reason why the figures today show a 7.9 per cent, I think, increase in building approvals.

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