Page 130 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 December 2008
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investment in renewable technologies by attracting companies wishing to set up manufacturing plants based on renewable energy sources.
We know that some are willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of private sector money and what they need is just some basic assistance from the government. Our policy was mainly about providing some of the basic infrastructure, at $13.4 million, to allow this to go ahead. This renewable energy park could create up to 600 jobs in research and manufacture in Canberra. These are the jobs we want in the ACT. They are highly skilled, highly specialised, well-paid jobs and they do contribute to diversifying our economy.
We do not want to see a situation where we simply rely excessively on government spending, particularly federal government spending, for job creation. Job creation needs to become a little more self-sustaining, a little more separate from government. Ironically, that may need a little bit of assistance at the early stages from government but we believe that kind of assistance is justified. We believe the small amount of capital money that we committed to this policy would have seen significant economic benefits for the ACT and it is something that we would certainly commend to the ACT government to consider.
We want to see solar go ahead. We hope that this will be an open process, a good process, when we go and look at the solar farm. There are a lot of firms who are willing to invest and we have spoken to a number of them.
Mr Stanhope, in his interjections, I think, was denigrating Spark Solar and essentially implying that any money or any assistance that was given by the ACT government would be wasted, essentially implying that it was a poor risk. The risk assessment needs to be done. I am not sure that the ACT government has done that. There seems to be a lack of will on the part of Jon Stanhope and his cabinet to look at some of these industries and support some of these industries but we are very committed to seeing the ACT become a more sustainable economy.
Briefly, before I finish, it is worth talking about, in greening the ACT economy, our need to look at the issue of transport and development. These are things that cannot be put aside. It is not just one or the other; it is not just about investing in solar or wind or other renewable technologies; it is also about having a sustainable city. Part of that has to be about a sustainable transport agenda.
What we have seen from the government is a sustainable transport plan, most of which I believe has been tossed out, most of which has not be implemented. We do need to integrate the development of our city with our transport planning. There is no other economically sustainable way to get this right.
We cannot continue to have a situation where, at our town centres, we see minimal development, we see inappropriate development encroaching into the suburbs, but we do not get the density through these polices that we need to see enough people getting onto our business or, in the future, enough people to sustain a light rail system, if that becomes feasible. But it will not become feasible if there is not the foresight and the will to develop our city in a way that would underpin that. In 10 minutes, this is just a snapshot.
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