Page 2724 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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this side! “Them, them, them, them, them. Massive.” You point out anywhere in Hansard, on the record, in a press release, any conversation I have had, any public utterance, any speech I have given where I have called for massive increases in tourism spending. You will not find it. We have said, “Maintain the current spending. Maintain the current tourism funding, because it is a good investment.”
It is interesting that Mr Barr chooses that report. His predecessor commissioned a report. It is a government report. I have got a copy of it, because somebody thought I should have a copy of the government’s report from Access Economics in 2004, which did an analysis of the tourism spend and the benefit that it brought to the territory. It said at that time, in 2002-03, for a spend of just over $20 million, the government received $107 million in taxation. There is the multiplier effect. Do not believe me. Access Economics did the report for the government, and the government hides the report.
What is the government’s answer to the downturn in tourism across the country? Cut the spending and get rid of the senior staff. That is logical; that is a good start to improve your spend. Get rid of the people that know and get rid of the money that they had to spend.
Mr Barr suffers from the fact that he has only been in this place for a short period of time. If he goes back to the years before, yes, there was an increase according to those figures, because we were coming off such a low base because of previous cuts to tourism budgets by your government. There was nowhere else for it to go but up. It had slumped so far it could only go up. That is the truth. If you want to be selective and talk about reports, you drag out any report you want, and I will talk to you about it. I know a little bit more about it than you do.
You cannot trust Mr Hargreaves. Mr Hargreaves gets up and makes statements about what Mr Pratt said. He said, “Go to page 120 of budget paper 3. It is not about the road program; it is a revenue chart.” On page 120 of budget paper 3 2006-07 there is a chart. If Mr Hargreaves thinks that is a revenue chart, then God help the ACT government. It is headed “Table 6.7—Traffic Congestion and Road Safety Improvement Program”. That is a revenue chart? Mr Hargreaves, you got it wrong. As Mr Pratt pointed out, except for Gungahlin Drive, in this chart, for the years 2006-07, 2007-08 or 2008-09, there is no expenditure. It is the big white bit.
Mr Hargreaves is using last year’s budget papers. That is the problem. Not only is he slow, he is also a year behind. Jon Stanhope has given this man charge of municipal services, territory services and the environment. There he is quoting from last year’s budget paper. I knew he was slow. He had the temerity to call me silly. Who is silly now, Mr Hargreaves? I will read it out again for Mr Hargreaves’s benefit. It is table 6.7. It is headed “Traffic Congestion and Road Safety Improvement Program”. If Mr Hargreaves would come forward into 2006-07 we might have some sensible argument here, but we are not going to ever get it from that minister. It goes to show that exactly what both the estimates committee report and the dissenting report said about Mr Hargreaves is true.
Question put:
That the proposed expenditure be agreed to.
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