Page 1620 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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But even if you do come to dinner, I am not going to take questions from the floor.” You probably have to pay $500 extra for another question. There is the Chief Minister’s view of the business community—no questions from the floor, but we can sit and have a nice entree.
What a hypocrite the Chief Minister is. He will not engage with the business community in the forum developed by the chamber of commerce. That might be too threatening. We do not take questions; we do not go to a business forum. We will go to the chamber of commerce breakfast where we talk over everybody, because we are rude and insensitive. Perhaps we will not even come to that next year. I can see that. It will all just disappear. Community consultation—it will all just go. The snub from the Chief Minister to the business community has been heard long and loud by the community. We have to remember that they do have a purpose. Not only has he—
Mr Mulcahy: Welcome back.
MR SMYTH: He is back. The Chief Minister has come in. I will look forward to his response. Not only has he snubbed the business community, but he continues to tax them as if this sector were a bottomless cash cow for the public purse. Of course, we have Mr Quinlan’s immortal words on record: “Squeeze them till they bleed but not quite till they die.”
That is what the government thinks about the business community. You can see it in this year’s budget, and it continues. There is the city heart tax and conveyancing tax on commercial properties. Payroll tax remains unchanged. Numerous stamp duties and other taxes continue to be nuisances to business. All of those distract from business getting on with its role of boosting economic activity, employment, growth, exports and investments.
There were some more dollars for NICTA, the organisation that first saw life under the former Liberal government, but the government was required by the agreement to put that in anyway. Business and industry were acknowledged in the breach by the Stanhope government—but, as we have seen, only because he is afraid of Kevin Rudd and he might need them. He just might need them.
Let us turn to tourism. What about tourism? First you have this accounting where suddenly it seems that tourism got $24 million. After the $4½ million cuts of last year, at first blush that is pretty good. But when you ask the minister to explain where the money is coming from, he cannot. The $5.125 million that is there—
Mr Mulcahy: He had to take it on notice.
MR SMYTH: He had to take it on notice. The day after his budget, he had to take on notice where that $5 million came from. He said it sort of comes out of urban services. How urban services money is tourism money will need an interesting explanation. We see no real commitment to tourism and certainly—
Members interjecting—
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