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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3026 ..

you my commitment that, if they are sensible, we will implement them. We have built structures within business. We have built the knowledge bank. We have used the knowledge bank. We have built the Canberra partnership.

We are establishing business relationships worldwide: London, Wales, San Diego, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Cambridge. We are building those relationships. We have not just gone to those places for a junket and a visit. I have signed memorandums of understanding with a number of those zones. Today, I received a newsletter from the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, a very large organisation, which builds business in Los Angeles. One of the major features of the newsletter was an article about the relationship that the alliance has built with Canberra and an agreement that its CEO, Rohit Shukla, signed with us when he appeared at Focus on Business 2004 in Canberra.

A number of the major speakers at Focus on Business visited Australia and contributed to Focus on Business because I had met them overseas last year and invited them to come and participate. They did so willingly and they have seen the prospects for the ACT economy. They have been very positive. These people deal in sorting out businesses with a chance and a future and those that have not and they have seen exciting prospects for the ACT and are very happy to work with us. More will be seen of the territory working with those organisations to benefit from their experience.

We have invested in commercialisation funds. We are establishing a small business commissioner. We have invested in the National Information Communication Technology Australia—NICTA—centre of excellence. We are investing additional funds in the development of tourism and it is not about throwing money at events in tourism. Members will have observed that over the last couple of years we have developed a strategic approach. I think that it was even recognised in this place yesterday that the major attractions seem to be working better with the ACT government.

That did not happen by accident. It happened because I pushed for it. It is something that should have been done before, but the approach was never strategic. It was usually photo opportunity stuff and not a strategic approach—big bangs, but no substance, no underpinning. We have a far better approach to the development of tourism and the results are showing up. Mr Smyth, despite trying to put a bit of spin on those numbers last evening, had to concede that they were better than they had been. Beyond the World Cup and beyond the Masters Games, the numbers have improved. They have improved because the work has been done—not just having money thrown at it, but the thinking that has gone into it.

The government intends to work to build the economy. We intend to work with business. We anticipate that business will criticise us from time to time. Business will lobby in the public forum to minimise the cost to business, to minimise the imposition that government might make on it and to minimise occupational health and safety restrictions placed upon it. If the advocates for business did not do that, they would not be doing their jobs.

But our job is not to come in here and immediately embrace everything that is said by the business sector and say that it must be right. Our job is to be a bit more discerning. Our job is to be able to consider, as I said earlier, more than one concept at a given time and

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