Page 1598 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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white paper, which the government claims to have implemented and moved on from—I would move on from it, too, if I was them—and we move to Capital development: towards our second century, which was released in August last year without much fanfare at all, it is interesting to note on page 14 that there is this fabulous paragraph:
Today, the ACT economy is stronger than ever. In no small part this is due to the ACT Government’s sound fiscal and economic policies of the last five years.
Well, perhaps we should discuss what those sound fiscal and economic policies of the last five years have left us with and where they have taken us—they have taken us into recession. You can argue whether it is a technical recession or a real recession, whether it has no effect or it has some effect; but the reality is, according to the standard measure adopted by most Western nations, we are in recession. It is not something that has just happened. If you look at four of the last six quarters, 12 out of the last 18 months, you see that we have had negative growth in this economy. When you have negative growth, it means long term you have got problems with your revenue and your revenue base, because if there is negative growth you are not going to have the taxes you need to deliver the services that the minister speaks of.
So it is interesting; it is okay to slap Mr Doszpot, but then there is a whole chapter devoted to it in the economic white paper that the government has abandoned. It is interesting for those who were not here when it was released to go to the economic white paper. If you look for these sorts of words in the capital development document, you do not find them, but on page 6 of the economic white paper there is an interesting quote from the former Treasurer, Mr Quinlan:
With this in mind, there is a need to diversify the ACT economy to build a strong private sector. We need to do this to lessen the economic dependence we have on Commonwealth activity, and because a stronger and more diverse private sector represents the bridge to the new economy that will help the ACT create a more dynamic and attractive society.
So there is the clear acknowledgement from the government that it needed to do this. All you can say when you look at attempts to diversify the ACT economy in the last seven years is that the government has failed on any measure.
But let us look at employment in that sector, because when the last Liberal government came to office 60 per cent of the ACT was employed in government employment. When they left office, that figure was 40 per cent. The private sector had overtaken the public sector, and that heralded the seven years of economic growth and revenue that this government inherited and abandoned quite dramatically. That is the problem.
In the white paper there were four principles. In the new document we have three themes. In the white paper there were nine priority industries to be developed. In the new document we have three themes. In the white paper we had 47 outcomes that the government sought to achieve—at least they gave themselves some questions to answer. In the new document we have three themes. We have abandoned the fundamental principle that underwrote the economic white paper, where the then Treasurer, Mr Quinlan, said:
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