Page 3686 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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Then Ms Porter then went on to say that we will compromise the role of the national capital. The greatest compromising of the role of the national capital occurred when senator for the ACT Kate Lundy, in the most vindictive personal attack on the leadership of the NCA, removed 40 per cent of its staff and most of its budget. That is not protecting the role of the nation’s capital and this is what Ms Porter seeks to protect.
What did they call the NCA? They called it “bloated”. We had the public hearings. Senator Lundy had to eat humble pie. She never apologised and the current strong and stable federal government that Ms Porter speaks so highly about never replaced the money. That compromises the role of the nation’s capital and I note that Ms Porter has no answer to that.
Then, of course, she says that changing government might compromise the centenary celebrations. There are no centenary celebrations according to the federal government. There is money in this year’s federal budget for the centenary celebrations of ANZAC in 2015. That is fantastic—five years out and doing the work. But this Chief Minister, this ACT Labor government, cannot get the federal Labor government to commit to the centenary celebrations. Not a zack! How is that going to compromise the role of the centenary celebrations?
We all know why we are debating this motion today. It is great to see Ms Porter finally, after all her time here, taking interest in matters of the economy, for the future of Canberra and the region. But you only have to look at the early years of the Stanhope government when he ignored the region. So many of the procedures for the cross-border discussions that were in place were just simply ignored.
Then Ms Porter went on to say that it will have an effect on the surrounding region. She quoted figures—the huge growth in Queanbeyan, 29 per cent; Yass, 90 per cent. Why is that? It is because the planning policies and the land release policies of the ACT Stanhope-Gallagher government have forced people across the border. They could not afford to buy a house here. This government refused to match the stamp reduction policies of the New South Wales government—give them their due there—because they are addicted to revenue and they are addicted to spending.
That is why those people are across the border. They cannot afford to buy here. It is pure and simple. It is the Ted Quinlan policy: squeeze them until they bleed but not until they die. That is the economics of the ACT Labor Party. You have to give Ted Quinlan his due. He tried. He put his economic white paper on the table. He kept it simple for his colleagues. He called it a statement of the bleeding obvious because he had to get it through Jon Stanhope and Katy Gallagher.
They did not get it because it disappeared. The things that may have helped to set up a strong and stable economy for Canberra and the region in Ted Quinlan’s white paper never happened. It had key nodes that were to be developed, key industries that were to be looked after, 47 actions that were to be fulfilled. If you ask the Chief Minister, and I have done it on a couple of occasions, to outline the results, you never get a decent answer. You do not get an answer because it never happened. The statement of the bleeding obvious would not happen under the local Labor government.
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