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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3930 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

surrogacy, and the list goes on. All of those approaches, those policy directions, were taken because they were right. I think that when you have a look at the sex industry in the ACT, when you look at our X - rated video industry, you will see that they are well regulated, are on the right side of the law and are performing very well from a social perspective, and I think we can all be really proud of that. But it took guts. It took guts because there are lots of people, even inside our own party, who did not agree with us. But we took, I think, pretty courageous positions and they have proven to be very right.

We have also taken some very definite steps that I am sure the government will continue with in areas such as our new research and development fund. That is an important next stage of our business incentive scheme - to encourage companies to come to the ACT to do their research and development, to commercialise here and to grow their business in Canberra rather than in Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney. That is our future.

We have also changed the attitude of a lot of corporate boards around this country. We have spent a lot of time doing that. I do not like to think back to how many boardroom lunches I have had around Australia over the last 51/2 years trying to convince corporate leaders that Canberra is a good place in which to invest - in fact, not just a good place but a very profitable place in which they should put their money for the future. That has started to happen. It is great to see that there have been some very significant sales over the last 12 months, where significant investors have moved into the ACT, have bought up property and are investing in business and a whole range of different areas. It is great that we now have our own venture capital company here in Canberra. People are willing to invest in business start - ups in the national capital, something that previously would not have been heard of.

The health area was a bit similar to education. We could have done what some other states did and pull right back on our health budget. But we did not. We believed very strongly that what really mattered about Canberra was a good education system - in fact, the best education system in Australia - and a health system that we could be proud of. Yes, we have gone down the path of attempting to make our health system work better and bringing down our costs in areas where we were over spending. But our health budget has never been reduced - in not one year has it been reduced.

At the same time we set up the adolescent unit at Canberra Hospital, something that had been promised for years prior to us coming to government. We established the cardiac surgery unit - again something that had been promised for years. We upgraded the aged care area and the rehabilitation areas at a time when our budget was in big trouble. I am proud of that and I know others are too.

When our budget started to improve a bit we found we could invest in other areas. I refer to areas such as Civic, with the Civic upgrade of the city heart. I believe that Canberra's central area is looking better than it has ever looked. It is really starting to get some vibrancy. It is starting to be a place to which families want to come again, where they feel safe, and where they can enjoy this wonderful city. It is starting to get a real cosmopolitan feel.

Members will remember that when we came to government there was an extraordinary amount of unease in our suburban shopping centres. In 1995 a significant petition was presented in respect of the save our shops campaign. We went down the path of

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