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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2899 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

will expand our revenue and maintain basic services. We need growth to provide the jobs that will alleviate the poverty. There is no greater antidote to poverty than a job. All the plans for a shining future for Canberra amount to nothing without growth.

This budget only pays lip-service to the idea of growth. It pays lip-service to the idea of sustainability. In no better place do we see it than when we get to Mr Corbell's plans for planning, distributing land and running the building and construction industry in this town. Everything we see about Mr Corbell is antithetical to growth.

Mr Corbell has created a cloud of uncertainty that has descended upon one of the real engines of growth in this territory, the building industry. His planning regime has put the brakes on the building industry. Land releases have not happened. His planning hiatus has brought about arbitrary limits on development and a protracted neighbourhood planning process that has put projects on hold-projects the building industry conservatively estimates at $40 million. And $40 million creates a lot of jobs for subcontractors, a lot of jobs for mums and dads and a lot of jobs generally that kick on throughout the community.

Mr Corbell always maintains that he has good intentions to bring about a renaissance in planning in the ACT. Good intentions should be applauded, but they need to be realistic. In the plans Mr Corbell has for planning and land development in the ACT we see a revisitation of what we saw in the Whitlam government, a government so beloved of those opposite, a government that tried to build a new Jerusalem and sent the country to the dogs. It brought massive losses of jobs and rampant inflation and stifled investment. Why was this? There was their economic ignorance but there was also their irresponsibility.

We saw in those days an economic irresponsibility from people like the head of the ACTU, one RJL Hawke, who when he was extolling the great benefits of an 18 per cent wage rise was told that this would bring about rampant inflation but said that he did not care. We see the same thing happening here, except this time we are bringing about stultification. We are bringing an end to growth.

The Whitlam government liked to think of itself as socialist, but it was worse than that. It was a naive utopianist government. But that is probably too kind as well. It was a government of wishful thinking. You see the same wishful thinking in this government today. In the Whitlam era we saw DURD. Remember DURD? It was going to bring about a new utopia by planning for everything. Everything was going to be beautiful under Kep Enderby and DURD. It all came to nothing.

What we see here is Mr Corbell's new DURD. Mr Corbell's land servicing agency, which is the whelp of Landcom, will bring about a new Whitlamesque utopia. Why will he do this? Because he distrusts the private sector. He thinks the government can always do better. If he can, he will demonstrate that. I refer generally to his plans for land development. His intentions are admirable, but the minister relies on some magic pudding. There is no magic pudding in this town, as there was no magic pudding for DURD.

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