Page 3019 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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MR SMYTH: Go and read the documents. Have you read them all?
Ms Gallagher: I did. I found them. I found the most obscure reference.
MR SMYTH: You found them? The Treasurer now admits that, having made comments, she has found the documents and that she has read them. Need I go on? Need I say anything more? That litany should be sufficient to show that despite other comments made by Mr Harris—and we do not walk away from the comments; the comments are on the website—
Ms Gallagher: And then he said there is no evidence to support that in this instance.
MR SMYTH: No, I did not say that. This is so typical of the Treasurer. We have got the Treasurer who has the gall to come into this place, who has been quoting Tony Harris for two weeks, and then tell us she only just found this location on the website. We told you they were there; they are not hard to find. There are a number of documents, as you would know, Madam Assistant Speaker, there and they are reasonable documents. But you need to read them in their totality.
That litany should be sufficient to show that, despite other comments made by Mr Harris, he had a number of significant and fundamental criticisms to make of this budget. (Time expired.)
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (4.58): This budget has been formulated in the shadow of the global financial crisis which has presented an uncommon set of difficult circumstances in which to deliver a budget and project and forecast an accurate recovery time. However, this global recession presents a unique opportunity to enact a new vision that will ensure our economic prosperity while protecting our environment. Therefore, the Greens are concerned that the underlying approach of the ACT government is still very much “business as usual”.
This budget has not laid the foundations to evolve the ACT into a model that represents a more sustainable economy. The Greens expected the government to make a leading contribution to minimising Canberra’s environmental footprint, while maximising the value gained from economic activity. This budget does not adequately set out how we are to keep Canberra’s economy evolving to one which emphasises higher value, knowledge-based products and services alongside environmentally friendly technologies.
Where are the overall foundation measures to stimulate change in this direction? I note in the estimates committee report that the Property Council of Australia, ACT Division, has voiced concerns regarding the ACT government’s increasing dependence on a narrow revenue base, consisting of commonwealth GST revenue and ACT property taxes, as being unsustainable and that significant reforms are needed.
I concur with some of these concerns as the ACT economy needs to be placed on a sustainable trajectory, evolving to fall within the bounds of ecological sustainability,
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