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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2856 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

ACT between when they came to government last year and now and what will happen between now and, say, July next year when the white paper is finished? There has been no mention of what they are seeking to do now.

It is extraordinary that a new government, a government that had been in opposition for 61/2 years, should think that it is acceptable that it will take 20 months-and that is how long it will take-for the government to come up with its framework, 20 months during which very little will happen, except I predict that the ACT will slide. That would be unfortunate because it took six years to make up for the time in which this crowd were last in government.

Mr Stanhope said that you just cannot snap your fingers and do these things. Clearly, they cannot do anything over there to come up with a decent answer as to what it is that they are really doing to make sure that the ACT is sustainable. We have already heard from others about how there are no meaningful performance indicators in the Chief Minister's portfolio. I think that flies in the face of the government's comment that it would be honest, open and accountable.

We heard from senior public servants during the Estimates Committee process that they are not even sure whether the white paper will have any effect and that that will have to be judged when the white paper is tabled. Surely you have some idea of what the white paper will achieve, or are you really flying blind?

In the lead-up to the budget there was one thing that the business community was saying clearly that it saw as very important to continue the growth of small businesses in particular, but also medium and large businesses, in the ACT, that is, the lifting of the payroll tax threshold, as the previous government had promised. I think that their hopes were dashed when they read the documents and they found out not only that there was not to be a lifting of the payroll tax threshold, but also that there was very little in the entire document in terms of addressing the needs of small, medium and large businesses into the future.

I think that that is a shame. Yes, we have had a transition. We will argue about where the money will come from to fund the transition that has seen 60 per cent of Canberrans now employed in private enterprise, but they are there and we need to make sure that we, as an Assembly, are doing what we can to bolster that. But the government, most importantly, must ensure continuation of the growth that had started, and there is nothing in this budget for small business.

There is very little in this budget for tourism. I am pleased with one response to the comprehensive Estimates Committee report-the most thorough report issued in the last seven years; it is certainly better than the reports that were dished up by those in opposition previously. One of the recommendations was that the V8 money stay with CTEC. The only ray of light for the tourism industry has been the Treasurer's statement that he would like the money to stay with CTEC, but that will depend on future need. Apart from that, we can see nothing else for tourism, for instance, in this budget. There is to be continuation of the visitation program to Canberra, money that we had started funding. Given the success of the program, it is appropriate for it to continue. But it is hard to call that new money.

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