Page 753 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (12.24): I regret that we have had such little time to see the terms of this particular amendment. I must say, I am standing just to give myself time to think about it, but it might just have been as easy to adjourn now for lunch so that members of the Assembly had an opportunity to read the amendment. It is a proposal that the wording of the motion that has been debated for the last couple of hours essentially be removed and be replaced by this amendment, an amendment which we have had just for one minute.
Mr Hanson: Now you know how Malcolm feels.
MR STANHOPE: We want to give some consideration to this. We do not want to dismiss the package out of hand, as Mr Turnbull did. I think we get to the heart of the matter in relation to the attitude of the ACT branch of the Liberal Party—that is, they have simply parroted the view of the federal Liberal Party and have chosen to oppose the stimulus package in its entirety.
The presentations today made by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Ginninderra gave no suggestion as to which parts of the package the Liberal Party does not support. We see from the debate on the amendment that has just been defeated that the Liberal Party’s position is that there a number of positive aspects. Of course, the corollary is that there are a number of negative aspects. That is at the heart of some of the concern we have in relation to the attitude which both the Liberal Party and, indeed, the Greens have taken. They gave no explanation of what it is about the package that they oppose, otherwise that would suggest there are other things that they would have preferred to have seen to be done.
It seems to me that this is at the heart of the issue we face. We face a major international crisis, a major national crisis, a major ACT community crisis in relation to our economy, its capacity to continue to grow and its capacity to continue to sustain the workforce currently employed here. We can be parochial about it. We look at and think about our community and our economy. We have been advised that we can expect unemployment in the ACT to double to at least 5.4 per cent.
The federal government, charged with responsibility for protecting the national economy and employment throughout Australia, has put together a very significant package, a $42 billion stimulus package. They need our support, and they deserve our support. This is a time of national emergency, and the federal government, the government we have elected to provide this leadership, this guidance, this support and this emergency action and response, has sought to do that, but it is being thwarted. It is being thwarted in its efforts to maintain stability, to stimulate the economy and to protect jobs by an attitude of those within the federal parliament, most particularly the Liberal Party, which is opposing the package outright, and the Greens and others that are delaying the implementation of the package. We see some of the rationale or justification of that today.
Mr Seselja: Scrutiny is delay?
MR STANHOPE: It is not just scrutiny; it is a suggestion, and we heard it from Mr Rattenbury particularly. He would have preferred the money to have been spent on public transport. So the Greens believe a greater stimulus package should have been
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