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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 977 ..

MR CORBELL: That is the claim. Whether or not it is accurate is something that I will need to check. But that is the claim that Ms Tucker and her constituent are making. I am happy to investigate the particulars of the case that you raise, Ms Tucker. What I can say in general is that, of course, the advice of all agencies that have a role to play, whether it is waste management, traffic and roads or a range of other, say, utility providers like ActewAGL, is taken very seriously because they are fundamentally the experts in that particular area and they feed into the overall development approval process. At the end of the day, a development approval is a complex thing that has to try to bring together all those different elements. I am happy to check the details of the particular circumstances that Ms Tucker outlines and to provide further information to the Assembly.

MS TUCKER: Thank you. To follow that on, could you table by close of business city management’s comments on traffic advice on that particular proposal?

MR CORBELL: I will undertake to get that information to the Assembly as quickly as possible.

Budget—independent commentary

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, my question, through you, is to the Treasurer. It is hard to believe that the budget season encroaches once again. I understand that there has been recent independent commentary on both the ACT budgetary position and the economy. Will the Treasurer inform the Assembly of the central points of the commentary and whether he agrees with them?

MR QUINLAN: With pleasure, Mr Hargreaves. The duty befalls me to bring some good news to the Assembly. As Mr Hargreaves points out, we are heading towards our budget. I would like to advise the Assembly—and I think the Assembly would be pleased to hear—of commentary on the ACT economy from a number of external organisations.

May I start with Access Economics, who are not always complimentary to the ACT in their analysis, so one could be reasonably assured that this is—how would I put it?—an “unspun” story. In their mid-year review, Access Economics said the following:

The ACT’s public finances are fire-proofed by its incredibly strong balance sheet. While there may be future risks, it is difficult to imagine even the worse-case scenarios doing much damage to these finances over the foreseeable future.

Mr Stefaniak: Even a Labor government?

MR QUINLAN: That is right. Mr Stefaniak, this is the Access Economics commentary on financial performance. Members ought know, of course, that the ACT has a AAA credit rating from Moody’s, based on our healthy financial performance; and a AAA credit rating from Standard and Poor’s for our strong financial position and good fiscal management.

There are many more. Let us take some key indicators that confirm this view. For the year ending December 2003, economic growth, measured by state final demand,

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