Page 2253 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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We are compensated for that. Nevertheless—
nevertheless—
it narrows our economic base and our capacity to raise … tax.
Later that day he said:
We all know that that is simply unsustainable for a small jurisdiction with a small, and very narrow, economic base.
The timidity level has crept in. In 1998 he was going to fix it. But he has been Chief Minister for six years and apparently we still have a very narrow economic base. That is probably because we have got a very narrow Chief Minister with a very narrow view of business. On 28 June 2005, Mr Stanhope said:
In an environment where we, as a community, must be mindful of the narrowness of our economic base—
So it goes on, Mr Speaker. There are numerous examples, and plenty in the last couple of weeks. But the question now, after almost 10 years in parliament, is: what has Jon Stanhope, Chief Minister of the ACT, done to fulfil his commitment to broaden our economic base? The answer, Mr Mulcahy, is absolutely nothing, and it is getting worse because Ted Quinlan at least had the gall to put together an economic white paper. You would remember, Mr Speaker, that at the time he said it was just common sense; it was the bleeding obvious.
If you have an economic white paper, what can you achieve? If you are Jon Stanhope and you have a view to broadening your economic base, what can you do? On page 6, the economic white paper states:
With this in mind, there is a need to diversify the ACT … to build a strong private sector.
Remember when private enterprise comprised 60 per cent of employment in this city. It has declined now to 55 per cent and is trending down. They are recent ABS figures. The Chief Minister has abandoned the private sector. In doing so, he has condemned Canberrans. The white paper states:
With this in mind, there is a need to diversify the ACT economy to build a strong private sector. We need to do this to lessen the economic dependency we have on Commonwealth activity, and because a stronger and more diverse private sector represents the bridge to the new economy that will help the ACT create a more dynamic and attractive society.
So we have abandoned the more dynamic and more attractive society, and we have abandoned the bridge, apparently. The bridge to the new economy is not being built. What would it look like? Will Jon Stanhope create Sydney Harbour Bridge in Canberra? Will it be tall and strong and striking? I do not think so. Will it be long,
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