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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2857 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, how is that relevant to the Chief Minister's Department?

MR SMYTH: It covers tourism, Mr Speaker, unless you want to tell me that it does not.

MR SPEAKER: I assume that it does. I assume that you are right. The papers in front of me do not explain it in that way.

MR SMYTH: If you would like to tell me where I should more appropriately talk about tourism, I am happy to do it at another time, but business is certainly within the Chief Minister's Department, as is tourism. Mr Speaker, the whole point is that, again, this is a do-nothing budget for tourism. The government is going to consider the future of the National Convention Centre. It is going to consider how to implement the tourism plan. But, having said no to the V8 race, what will the government do to plug that gap in the June long weekend? The tourism minister did have some ideas before but chose to discard them. I think it is a shame that he does it so glibly and so lightly.

Mr Speaker, what can business expect from this government? Not a great deal. What can the tourism industry expect from this government? Not a great deal. Therefore, what can Canberrans expect in terms of employment in one of the largest industries that we have in this place? Very little, I would put to you. Mr Quinlan has tabled figures showing unemployment is at 3.5 per cent.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, I draw your attention to the administrative arrangements for 2002. They show the Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism as being responsible for economic development, employment matters, business development and tourism policy and services.

MR SMYTH: Under which unit would you prefer that this be discussed, Mr Speaker?

MR SPEAKER: It still comes under Chief Minister's; you are right.

MR SMYTH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. There is nothing in this budget for small, medium or large businesses and there is nothing in this budget for tourism. Mr Humphries has already discussed the knowledge fund and how there are no indicators on what the knowledge fund will do. Indeed, even in the discussion during the estimates, the officers were wary about saying that the knowledge fund was bound for success because there was such a large amount of risk involved. They were unable to tell us when there might be a return to the knowledge fund so that more knowledge could be dispensed around the city with the moneys circulating through the fund.

We were not told how that might happen, what sort of success they expected and the sort of time frame in which they expected that success to occur. It gets back to there being no meaningful performance indicators. The reason they cannot tell us is that they just do not know. As we have seen in a number of portfolios under this government, what seems like a good idea at the time is much harder to deliver when you are in government, so we will have to sit and wait and watch what they do.

Mr Speaker, the minister has responded to the one recommendation that deserves particular attention. I refer to recommendation 11, which goes to setting a deadline for the economic white paper. The committee recommended that the minister set a deadline

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