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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1393 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

It also provides advantages to tourists and residents of the ACT and region in that they have additional flights from which they can choose. Instead of driving to Sydney, people can now come to Canberra and then link further afield to Brisbane and other places. That is tremendous because again it will bring additional business. There will be additional night hotel stays because people will come to Canberra a day earlier. They may stay here overnight before they travel back to wherever they reside, and again that is additional expenditure here in the ACT. It comes down to additional jobs and the spin-offs become an amazing web that builds up the ACT in terms of employment, in terms of stability and in terms of opportunity.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it will also make Canberra a more competitive business and tourism destination. Through that choice, we will now have competition. There will be different packages offered, and again that will flow back into jobs and business opportunities. It is something I am sure that all in this place really do support. We certainly do. Best of all, it will make Canberra more accessible. It will make Canberra more accessible to regional residents and that then has a flow-on effect in that people travelling here will make use of the other services that we provide here, whether it be specialist medical services or disability services, or whether they come here to access education or simply to shop. There are lots of benefits in this. There are lots of spin-offs in this.

Mr Hird is to be congratulated for raising this matter of public importance today. It is important that we support this proposal. It is important that the public understand the benefits that will come from this to all of us. It is important that the Assembly gets right behind this unreservedly and supports the endeavours of groups like Impulse.

MS TUCKER (4.27): I will speak briefly. I do not imagine that there is much time left.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have 10 minutes.

MS TUCKER: Okay. Thank you. I want to refer to the discussion about noting the paper. It amused me when the report was tabled for tree protection. I noticed that Mr Smyth said he noted the report. So, if we are to understand the Chief Minister's press release to be about how we interpret noting a paper, we have just got Mr Smyth's full support for that tree report. Mr Corbell, you will be pleased to hear that.

Mr Corbell: I am overwhelmed.

MS TUCKER: I am not too happy with that report. Are you going to be happy with that? I am really not quite sure why Mr Hird put up this MPI because it obviously covers the same issues that were raised in the debate in the Assembly in the last sitting week. I would also stress that during that debate I do not think anyone particularly doubted the economic impact on the ACT of Impulse's move. I acknowledge that the establishment of a new airline facility at the airport obviously will generate more economic activity in the ACT. The concerns I raised were the narrowness of the assessment and the appropriateness of the government subsidising Impulse's move.

I pointed out that the government's assessment of the impacts of this proposal was totally focused on the local economic impacts-that is, how much extra money will flow through the ACT. There was no attempt to look at the environmental or social impacts of

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