Page 555 - Week 02 - Thursday, 9 March 2006
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longer term the great importance strategically is the opportunity it presents for us to create a new identity and to foster in the people throughout Australia a connection with and love of their national capital to a degree which they currently do not. I am hopeful that, through this seven-year long process leading up to the centenary, Australians will look at Canberra by 2013 and thereafter in a way that I think we all understand they do not currently always look at Canberra.
This is the great opportunity. I think that we must grasp it. I am very keen to work with all members of the Assembly and the entire Canberra community to ensure that we do not let this opportunity slip, that we do not in any way miss the boat and lose the opportunity or that we do not maximise this great opportunity because, if we do not grasp it, we will lose it and it is fundamentally important for our future. We can ratchet a lot out of it and I certainly do appreciate the support of all members. I appreciate the support that the opposition has shown. I look forward to working particularly with all members but specifically with the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition to ensure that we do maximise the opportunity presented to us through the centenary.
I ask that further questions be placed on the notice paper.
Personal explanations
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo): Under standing order 46 I seek leave to make a personal explanation.
MR SPEAKER: The member may proceed.
MR MULCAHY: Mr Speaker, during debate yesterday the Treasurer said he believed that I might have misrepresented him. He said words to the effect that I had said that he had failed to produce reports on the business migration program that he had promised to present in the Assembly. The actual words I used were:
… to date there have been no systems of measurement maintained or official reports produced since the program’s launch that gauge the success or failure of the program, despite assurances that quarterly reports would be issued. Instead, the government … chosen to rely on anecdotal evidence to measure the program’s performance, with an assurance from the Treasurer’s office that hard statistical data will be coming soon …
The first part of that information on which my remarks were based came from the ACT government skills and business migration strategy, which reports—
MR SPEAKER: How have you been misrepresented?
MR MULCAHY: I was misrepresented in that the Treasurer made the statement that I needed to apologise to the Assembly for accusing him of failing to present information to the Assembly. What I am explaining, Mr Speaker, is that I did not put that point of view. I simply said the quarterly reports had not been issued despite assurances. The second part of the information that the government—
MR SPEAKER: Well, you have explained yourself.
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