Page 3394 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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put in place and the genuine impact that they will have on the business community in the ACT.
The history of this government is poor: cuts to funding, we have had cuts to programs and we had cuts to tourism. For instance, many small businesses in the ACT rely on the tourism industry—in particular, on the convention industry, the meeting industry. But here we are, eight years into a Stanhope government, seven years after Ted Quinlan told the tourism awards in December 2001 that “by this time next year” when the awards were on—that is, December 2002—“we’ll be announcing where the new Convention Centre will go”. Well, here we are, approaching December 2009, and if you are a small or micro business that hangs off the Convention Centre and the tourism industry, you would not be holding your breath at this stage.
In the lead-up to the election, the Chief Minister said that there were only two things that the business community in the ACT needed, and they were leadership and surpluses—leadership that he would provide and surpluses that he would guarantee. Weeks out from the election, the Chief Minister personally promised surpluses. Of course, we know that that disappeared as soon as the election was over. Instead of having the leadership that they need, the surpluses that they deserve and the lack of debt that they wanted, they have a government giving them deficits and a government giving them increased debt.
In terms of the recent budget, the Business Council appeared at the estimates committee hearings. It is interesting to read some of the quotes from the CEO of the Business Council. One of them was:
… we are hearing on a regular basis that it is more difficult to do business with the ACT government than any other jurisdiction in Australia and sometimes overseas. We have exporters that find it easier to do business with defence in Washington than they do with the ACT government.
That is a pretty damning indictment. The US defence department is not renowned for its usability. But we have somebody saying, “We have exporters that find it easier to deal with defence in Washington than they do with the ACT government.” And there you go. The CEO of the Business Council went on to say that one organisation said they had had three interviews with companies this week and all had indicated they planned to go to Adelaide or places in New South Wales because it is much easier. So it is well and good to have an advisory council or a forum, but you are going to have to start listening to the business community. They do not think you are doing your job and they do not think that Canberra is an easy place to deal with. They would rather deal with defence in Washington, they would rather go to Adelaide or they would rather go to New South Wales. It is pretty sad.
The final thing that the Business Council had to say was—and this was about the debt, despite the promise that we would have years of surpluses:
Our concerns relate to the magnitude and duration of the forecast budget deficits. It is our view that some … serious measures will need to be taken to claw back those deficits in future years … Those concerns are amplified by the fact that the budget does not clearly outline how the ACT government expects to eliminate the deficit by 2015-16 … it is quite a worrying time for business to be looking at seven years of deficit.
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