Page 1387 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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economic activity, primarily. That is the number one reason that it has been put through—that this money can be spent, and spent quickly, so that jobs can be created, so that there can be economic activity in a slowing economy. That is a principle that we support.
The question is how much other potential economic activity is being delayed in the system as a result of flaws in the system. For that reason, as I said on the first day that the minister announced this, we should look at reasonable areas where this can be extended. That is an ongoing process and we will be pleased to continue to have that debate, perhaps over the coming days. It is not major developments, because I think major developments cannot be exempted in the way that these are, but minor developments that are not necessarily funded by the federal government.
You cannot tell me that the precedent here—which is that we need to get this through, and we need to get it through quickly for economic activity so these things can get done and not unreasonably delay—cannot also apply to other parts of the private sector, particularly where the developments are virtually identical. They simply are not happening on school sites and they are not funded by the stimulus package.
That will be the question for the minister. If it is reasonable—which we believe it is—for these developments to be exempt so that we can get them through the system, get the economic activity happening and get the jobs creation, why is it different when we see identical developments or virtually identical developments simply not on school sites?
That is a question that the minister is going to have to answer. Will he block moves to improve the system in other ways and to allow other developments which are basically the same developments in nature, but are simply not on school sites and are not funded by the stimulus package? Will he support that? If he will not, the question is: why does private sector investment not deserve the attention of our government and why does private sector investment not deserve some sort of reasonable passage through our planning system? That is going to be the fundamental question for the Labor Party to answer now as we move forward.
We have tripartisan agreement, as I understand it, on this regulation, against this motion to disallow it. The question going forward is: if it is reasonable that we do it for relatively minor developments in schools, is it not reasonable that we extend it for minor developments that are not in schools and that are not funded by the stimulus package? That is a debate we will be having.
Now it is up to particularly the media to be putting it to the minister. Will you support moves to do that? If it is reasonable in this case, is it reasonable in other cases? And if not, why are those jobs not as important? Why is that economic activity not important? There is no reasonable answer to it. And if the answer is no, if the Labor Party do not support these kind of moves, then what they are saying is that there are two classes of spending: there is Kevin Rudd’s spending in schools which need special treatment and there is all of the other spending in the economy, all of the other potential developments, and they get treated differently: they are not worthy of any special assistance to ensure that that kind of economic activity can happen.
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