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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2852 ..
MRS DUNNE (continuing):
answer to that was no. We are going to spend $32 million in the first instance and probably $80 million to $100 million in the final instance and rip a trench 80 metres wide and seven metres deep through Belconnen, through a precinct, divide a suburb against itself. Will the Office of Sustainability be involved? No, not at all.
We are finding that all the time. As Ms Tucker has pointed out in this place today, the Office of Sustainability, like almost every other aspect of government, has no meaningful performance indicator. It has one quantitative performance indicator, which is to develop a sustainability framework. It is going to be very hard for it to do that as this government has no idea what it means by sustainability.
As we will find as we go through this budget and as the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, there are no meaningful performance indicators for most of the major new tasks. The knowledge fund has no performance indicators. Here we have no performance indicators. Of course, you are not setting yourself up for a fall if you do not have anything to measure. This government is hiding its failures even before it gets there, as it has done constantly, by having no statistics, no measures that we can compare. This is a matter of great shame and the government will soon become known across the community as a government that is lazy, secretive, will not deal honestly with the people and has no ideas.
MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for Women) (4.24): I will be brief, Mr Speaker. Initially, I had planned to rise to make the points that my colleague Mr Corbell has made about the significance and importance of the long-term strategic planning that we are doing. It is being coordinated to a large extent by the Chief Minister's Department, but all departments are playing a significant role and part in it.
It is the case, as has been mentioned by members on both this side and the other side, that there is an awful lot of work in train. Significant work is being done on the development of an economic white paper, something which was promised in the election campaign. Mr Quinlan included that in the major statement he made about our commitment to the development of an integrated industry strategy policy and the development of a sustainable economic future for the ACT. We are doing a range of work through the development of an economic white paper.
No, it is not something which you can snap your fingers or wave a wand and produce overnight. Yes, we are being measured and deliberate in the way that we have gone about its development and it will be ready next year. We are developing a social plan, something that has never been done, along with the development of an economic white paper. We have never had an integrated strategic industry policy or economic plan for the ACT. Yes, we have established an Office of Sustainability. Members opposite pour scorn on that. It is the first office of sustainability in Australia.
Mr Humphries: And it will be the last.
MR STANHOPE
: Mr Humphries says that it will be the last. Time and history will prove him wrong in that. Indeed, we are blazing a trail with the creation of the Office of Sustainability. Yes, there has been a lot of initial make-up work that has to be done when
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