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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (9 May) . . Page.. 1323 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

that in contemporary Australia that principle is not the prevalent principle at work with respect to a great deal of the economic activity that takes place in our community. The reality is that there are many, many cases in our community of private profit, if you like, which derives directly from a public subsidy of some sort or another. There are many such cases.

One good example of that, Mr Speaker, is a decision just a few weeks ago in this place, a unanimous decision, to provide a subsidy of from $8 million to $10 million, depending on how you calculate it, to a private airline to establish a business in the ACT. Ultimately, that $8 million to $10 million will assist that airline to a profitable situation-to provide either increased profits or to make profits where otherwise they would not make profits. In other words, the community has subsidised a private organisation, a business, has put public money into a private business, to produce profits for that private business. Members in this place, without much hesitation, supported us doing that on that occasion, Mr Speaker.

Mr Berry: Do not speak for me. I expressed-

MR HUMPHRIES: Actually, I think you did, Mr Berry. I withdraw that. It was not a motion of support; it was a motion to note. The members expressed support in the debate for the concept of providing the subsidy. There are many other examples of where similar public subsidies in one form or another are provided.

I will give you another example. The government has engaged in the last few years in a major program to upgrade streetscapes, particularly in places like Manuka and Civic, and particularly the paving of those areas, to facilitate private businesses to be able to put outdoor cafe tables and chairs in more attractive settings. Again it is an example of public subsidy of private profit.

Put in those bald terms, it does not sound like a very attractive proposition, but the more you look at it the more you realise that our community, indeed, other communities all around Australia, in fact probably all around the world, do provide extensively for private organisations, namely businesses, to receive a measure of public subsidy to assist them to make profits.

Why do we do this? What is the purpose of that? The purpose, Mr Speaker, is to facilitate economic activity which is desirable, and desired by the community to occur, but which might not occur but for the subsidy. A total laissez faire view would say that governments should not be in the business of entering the marketplace; they should not be providing subsidies to players; they should not be picking winners; they should leave the market to do what it wants to do by itself. That is the absolutist view. But we have never been of that view in this country. We have always provided some measure of support to private enterprise in order to facilitate the creation of business opportunities and, in turn, jobs, and this is the crux of the debate. That is what the debate is about. It is about the generation of economic activity so as to create jobs and economic opportunities for our community.

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