Page 1933 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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Last, I go to business and industry development. I am running out of time, so I will just note that Ms Hunter spoke at greater length about the need for Canberra to move to a green knowledge-based economy. It is important that we provide more support than we are currently doing for this. I very much look forward to the green economy paper which, as a result of the Greens-Labor agreement, I understand the government has funded the University of Canberra to produce.
Overall, it is a budget that is steady as she goes. I would have liked to see a budget that had a more visionary grasp of the needs of a future Canberra, and from what I have heard I think that these sentiments are echoed throughout the community.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (5.25): For a mid-term government, the Stanhope-Gallagher government has delivered what many have characterised as a boring budget.
In the face of healthy economic indicators, the ACT Labor Party never ceases to trumpet the doom and gloom scenario of the economy. Last year’s budget was tinted by talks of the efficiency dividend and the global financial crisis. And this year it is the GST.
The facts are simple and plain to see. The ACT economy is keeping pace with the Australian economy. The economy is returning to pre-GFC levels. Employment and participation rates are strong. Hence, as much as the Treasurer would like to explain it away, this is a budget of opportunities lost. But the fact still remains that the ACT economy is sounder than the government would want us to think. And the fact is that the Stanhope-Gallagher budget has once again failed the community and the people of Canberra. Simply put, this budget focuses too much on short-term wins and not on preparing the present for the future.
The ACT Labor government has touted our economy as a knowledge economy, yet this budget has focused on marquee capital projects. It should be investing in Canberrans, in people, in knowledge. Instead, as Mr Seselja has said, we are here to lament a budget that gives us deficit after deficit, debt upon debt, a stagnation in services and a massive tax grab on homeowners and car drivers.
Turning to my portfolio of education, as much as we acknowledge the $14.4 million to be invested in new schools over four years, the government has consistently rejected the idea of reopening schools in Flynn, Cook, Hall and Tharwa. The new $4 million children’s centre in Flynn is not a school—and it is at twice the cost of what the government said it would cost to reopen the Flynn primary school, and completely at odds with the Flynn community group’s proposal.
On 27 April 2010 the Flynn community group issued the following press release, headlined “Flynn seeks urgent meeting after Anzac Day shock”:
Flynn community groups are seeking an urgent meeting with ACT Government ministers following the shock Anzac Day announcement for Flynn Primary School that appears to leave the Flynn community out in the cold again.
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