Page 84 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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MR HARGREAVES: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: I am drawing a comparison regarding the processes that Mr Pratt has articulated. There is a very clear comparison that is required to be made. Furthermore, I have only one small comment to make.
MR SPEAKER: I think Mr Hargreaves is drawing comparisons between—
Mr Smyth: But to make a comparison, Mr Speaker, you actually have to say something about what you are trying to draw the comparison to. All he has done is to talk about the Liberal Party.
MR HARGREAVES: You are sitting there and you are squirming!
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hargreaves!
Mr Pratt: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: the MPI is about the decision-making processes of government, not the leadership processes within parliamentary parties. So he is wasting our time, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves is entitled to draw comparisons between various administrations.
MR HARGREAVES: The question arises: have they learnt anything from almost seven years in opposition? As I said, they certainly have not learned that the first step in governing, or attempting to take government, is to restore confidence in the process of government—to propose and explain a manner of strong, responsible, responsive and accountable governance. If they cannot do it in opposition, they cannot do it in government.
On the other hand, the government still holds to the values of fairness, integrity, openness, honesty, compassion, responsibility, accountability and leadership. These are the values that shape the vision Labor has for Canberra. It is a vision of a strong, confident community asserting its place in the country’s affairs as the national capital. It is a vision of a community-of-the-whole that does not ignore one sector in favour of another.
Our core values frame the manner in which the Stanhope government goes about its business—the business of governing our city-state for all Canberrans. And this approach is paying off in spades. The economy is going gangbusters. There are a couple of informal indicators of that. For example, the Chair of the ACT Property Council said at his organisation’s Christmas party that any property owner or developer who cannot make money in the climate created under this government should get out of the game. In addition, the airport management is expecting a 22 per cent increase in passenger numbers in the coming weeks and months.
A more formal indicator of how well we are doing is the latest ANZ job advertisement data that was released in the last couple of days. Those data show that the ACT trend job ad series recorded 9.7 per cent year-on-year growth to January 2008. Growth in job ads has generally been a leading indicator of employment growth. Trend
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