Page 3687 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Let us not bleat about a strong and stable economy for Canberra when this government has done everything in its path to slow that down. Let us face it: Ted tried, Jon did not understand it and Katy did not care. That is the summary, because when you ask Mr Stanhope he says, “Yes, I lament the lack of a broader economic base.” But he did nothing about it. Ms Gallagher, when she was asked in this place, said, “You just cannot wind yourself off the federal spending. That is all we have got. That is all we are ever going to be.”
If you have got that sort of attitude, of course that is all you are ever going to be. If you look at the recent Sensis report, conveniently published this morning, support for the ACT government and its policies is at minus 18 per cent. It is minus 18 per cent. The ACT government is an impediment, according to the businesses of the ACT.
Support for the federal government in the June quarter was minus three per cent, and it is consistently flat. In the June quarter for the ACT it was minus 18 per cent, in the August quarter it is minus 18 per cent. Congratulations on consistency! But support for the federal government was at minus three per cent in June 2010. By August 2010 it was minus 20 per cent. No-one in the business community has faith in the federal government that we currently have.
The key problems facing ACT small businesses are finding and keeping staff—something the Chief Minister has gone on about for a long time but has not been able to fix—lack of work and the economic climate. You can put the economic climate down to the mismanagement of the economy by the Rudd-Gillard government. There are the prospects. It is great that you brought this on. I am very pleased that you brought this motion on, because there is a lot that we can do. It is a very important matter. You have got right to the heart of it, which is economic development.
This MPI is timely on a day when the ACT recorded the largest fall in business confidence, when across Australia confidence among small and medium enterprises decreased and when the key problems, as I have said, facing us in the ACT were the economic climate, the lack of work, and finding and keeping staff. I think it is that environment as summarised by the Sensis survey that really we are considering in this MPI. So it is timely; well done in that regard.
The ultimate objective for any jurisdiction is to achieve economic stability and economic strength to the greatest extent possible. A key requirement of achieving this objective would be the resources that are available to that jurisdiction. It is incumbent upon a jurisdiction to utilise its own resources as effectively and efficiently as possible and to engage in trade with other jurisdictions to obtain any good or service that it does not have or cannot generate efficiently. This approaches the general principle on which economic development and trade are based. A jurisdiction needs to identify its resource base. It then needs to utilise that resource base as effectively as possible and by doing this, extend and strengthen its domestic economy and its employment base.
How do you relate that approach to the ACT? The simple answer is that well up until the ACT Labor government in 2001, we actually performed pretty well in that regard.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video