Page 2255 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
growing and innovative private sector. Where is the growth; where is the innovation? The answer is that the private sector, as a percentage of employment in the ACT, is declining. It is declining because the tax burden has been increased, the regulatory burden has been increased and the government’s commitment, through the white paper, has been decreased.
How do we know that? The white paper—and I am sure you are well acquainted with it, Mr Speaker—contains four themes, nine strategic sectors and 47 recommendations. What are we doing at the moment? We are backing away from all of it. When I asked what they had achieved in the nine sectors, I got the same pat answer, whether it was for information and communication technology, space sciences, biotechnology, public administration, environmental industries, creative industries, sports science and administration and education and defence. No matter which area we looked at, the pat answer was “we do not know”.
Recommendation 13 of the estimates committee report—and I commend the committee for making this recommendation—is that the government outline its future plans for those industries listed in the white paper. What was the answer? The answer on page 7 of the Chief Minister’s response, which was tabled this morning, is that we are backing away from having strategic sectors. What we are going to have is a general business economy from which everyone will benefit. Well, the question is how and when will we know that we have got there?
We now know that there are two levels of recommendations in the economic white paper. Yes, there are two different levels. For instance, when we look at policies for managing intellectual property, recommendation 40, the Chief Minister’s response is that action 40 is a second order economic white paper initiative. I had not heard of second order initiatives before, Mr Speaker. We now have first order initiatives and second order initiatives. We no longer have strategic sectors and we have split up the initiatives into first order and second order. Of course, there are the discontinued initiatives, things like the small business commission and Screen ACTion, which has been changed several times.
The problem is that when you ask the Chief Minister questions in the estimates, when you drill down into this budget and when you look at how we are going to pay for the future—remember this bridge to a more dynamic and attractive society based on Jon Stanhope’s nine-year desire to diversify our economic base—what do we find? We find nothing but a reliance on property tax, and if the business community has the absolute temerity to raise issues about property tax then they are just a bunch of whingers.
This raises a whole series of questions. I am sure the Chief Minister is about to jump up and tell me which of the 47 recommendations are now second order recommendations. That really moves quite dramatically away from the white paper. During the estimates the Chief Minster said on a number of occasions, and he has said it since, that the economic white paper is the basis of economic future in the ACT. In this line item in the budget the Chief Minister is asking for some $42 million. Some of that used to go to business, and now it is a whole lot less. There is no commitment to the recommendations or to strategic industries.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .