Page 1197 - Week 04 - Thursday, 17 March 2005
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MR QUINLAN: Where were they working?
Mr Mulcahy: When did we have that function?
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Gentlemen, please confine your remarks to statements through the chair. If you have a point of order, Mr Mulcahy, you may raise it.
Mr Mulcahy: I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker.
MR QUINLAN: Sorry, mate. You do not get there often and we should recognise it while you are there. The states and territories ceded their power to collect corporate regulatory fees years ago, much as they have ceded their power to collect some excises, to the commonwealth on the basis that those funds would be repatriated. That is the process that takes place.
That happened to pre-date self-government; so, unfortunately, it was redundant to give the ACT those powers. Technically, we do not have those powers but, in equity, we ought to be getting, and we ought to be treated, the same as any other state or territory.
I would be very happy to hear you go out in the public forum and support Mr Costello in this particular move, because you would be supporting him against your own constituents. Do me that favour and go out and do it. I think you ought to be at least supporting the territory’s right to be treated in exactly the same way as other states and territories.
As for the matter of what has happened within the economy, Mr Mulcahy’s focus on spending and spending alone probably shows the limitations that exist over there. There was no reference at all in what he said to what needs to be done to boost the economy—the investment that needs to be made and the work that needs to be done to build the enterprise sector in the ACT.
I guess it is marginally counterintuitive that a Labor government should have done a lot more to boost the corporate sector in the ACT than previous Liberal governments have done, but that certainly has been the case. This government has invested in the NICTA centre of excellence. It has invested in commercialisation funds in relation to that and, working with the ANU, built the basis for a $30 million commercialisation fund. It has granted embryonic businesses R&D funds and start-up funds through the knowledge bank—a facility Mr Smyth has described as a failure. So one presumes that a Smyth Liberal government—that term we heard so often last year—would have abandoned the knowledge bank. I suggest you go and talk to the business sector about that move before you promulgate it any further. It shows, I think, the limited horizon that exists across the way.
In relation to the budget and the Chief Minister’s sensible warnings, there are pressures, particularly in health. Do not take my word for it. A couple of weeks ago the federal minister for health, Tony Abbott, announced an increase in health insurance premiums of up to 15 per cent in some insurance schemes. What was the justification? Health costs are going up at a faster rate than normal inflation. It is simple. Had we put that argument to the federal government when looking for grants funds or something to help run our
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