Page 2736 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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I would like to say a lot more about business and industry development, but unfortunately there was not an awful lot of information given about this in the budget papers. In recommendation 18 the estimates committee recommends that the government immediately commence the development of a policy framework that will encourage the growth of the private sector in the ACT. The government’s response is, “Not agreed.” I find that unbelievable. Maybe slow progress, but “not agreed”! Also, there is very little in the way of indicators as far as business projects are concerned.
Mr Smyth: It is okay. The ABS does it.
MS LE COUTEUR: I know. We should all be reading the ABS.
Mr Smyth: It is okay.
MS LE COUTEUR: I appreciate that, Brendan. It is difficult to see what is, in fact, the net return of the government’s business projects to ACT citizens. I am, however, pleased that the government has at least agreed to recommendation 28, which was a request to give more information in the budget papers on programs run by the Business Development Unit. As I have said before, this is mainly to reduce the workload of the public servants who have to answer our questions.
I would also like to talk a little bit about the Strategic Project Facilitation Unit. It is a unit which unfortunately got very little attention during the estimates process, but it does seem to be a very important gateway for projects and people that require some sort of special consideration from the government. This has made it a very difficult unit to scrutinise because everything it deals with is commercial-in-confidence and, as we know from the Auditor-General’s report on the data centre, there does not seem to be a lot in the way of clear processes. We saw the fiasco caused by the data centre and we remember the Auditor-General’s report on the issues with the handling of the direct sale of land for the project. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Mr Stanhope is not pleased with the Auditor-General.
A more recent fiasco, which seems to have cost the government at least $7 million, but possibly more, was the recent sale or non-sale of the press club block of land in Barton. These are the sorts of actions that we feel should be under a greater level of scrutiny and which are not now because of the minimal level of information about them in the budget papers. We would like to see this unit work more transparently. (Second speaking period taken.) I only need another minute, minister, you will be pleased to know.
I was pleased to find through the estimates process that the Land Development Agency has established a new Sustainability and Innovations Unit. This unit will be working on a sustainability framework and the work plan will cover environmental, economic, social and functional aspects of sustainability. It is also very pleasing to note that the LDA will be incorporating vegetation types into land release planning, but disappointing that it will not be incorporating vegetation maps into its land release maps.
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