Page 1424 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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colleagues on the opposition benches were talking over me. So I would really ask for your support, Madam Assistant Speaker, so that I can actually give my speech without being drowned out.
As I was saying, it is important that we look at the significant issues around how spending is conducted in the territory. But we need to do it in a constructive way. We need to do it in a productive way. And that is why, I guess, I do have concerns with the way that this motion has been put forward today. It does not talk about a way forward. There does not appear to be vision that I would like to engage with, that I would be very pleased to engage with and that, I know, the ACT Greens would be pleased to engage with. In fact, people across Canberra really are crying out for alternatives to be put up and for other discussions to be had in our community about the priorities of spending and how money is spent. These are all incredibly important issues. I agree, and I am very happy to engage.
But I would like to pick up also on what I was disappointed in and what I did not see in this motion today, and that was some substantial ideas around how we can diversify the economy in the ACT. This is something that Mr Smyth has raised again and again. I do recall being involved in a political panel, I think it was, at the ABC radio station. It was just after the budget. Mr Smyth was speaking quite passionately about the importance of diversifying the economy, that we could not continue to rely on the commonwealth, that under the previous Liberal government there had been less reliance on the commonwealth and there had been a growing private sector in the ACT.
I was inspired by how passionate Mr Smyth was when talking about this need to diversify our economy. I said that I would be very keen to be part of further discussions with him about what that actually looked like and what could be put forward to ensure that happened. Unfortunately, Mr Smyth has not put forward some of those ideas in this motion today and I do find that a bit disappointing because I think it would have been a great way forward to look at concrete proposals and ideas about how we can look at other ways to improve our economy, to enhance our economy, to not look at the same landscape that we have been looking at for some time, which is really the reliance on commonwealth money, and looking at the same small number of areas where we can try to raise revenue. So, I would be delighted to be able to have that conversation and look forward to when Mr Smyth can actually put forward those concrete ideas about how, in the ACT, we can diversify the economy.
On the issue of the need to protect vulnerable Canberrans, many people would know that I have worked with vulnerable Canberrans for over 25 years. I did get a little confused there for a moment when Mrs Dunne talked about vulnerable Canberrans being taxpayers and I was not quite sure what that meant and, therefore, what the Liberals’ definition of vulnerable Canberrans is. But it is important to pick it up in this motion.
It also took me back to anti-poverty week in October last year in the territory. I decided to go back to Hansard and have a bit of a look at that debate. I put forward a motion and one of its purposes was to call on the government to commit to quarantining community organisations which provide assistance to people in poverty
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