Page 2906 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
cluttered with events? Even the industry do not believe they needed another event in autumn, but the minister did, and so we have an event that helps fill an already full calendar for that time.
But we still do not have anything in summer time of particular significance, apart from the Summernats, but January is very quiet, December is pretty quiet, and we do not have a significant event in July, which is also very quiet for the sector. These are the problems that the sector faces when, of course, we have got a government that does not care about what is going on here. You have got things like Australia forum which is getting some lip-service from the government but not getting the support that it truly deserves. You have got an initiative called Australia forum but the money does not go to the forum at all.
You have got Enlighten, where the committee got a copy of the private report, the commercial-in-confidence report. For those who have not read it, there is a good footnote on the bottom of page 88 where apparently Mr Smyth and Mr Hanson, upon reading the report, were unable to find any reason to keep the report commercial-in-confidence. Indeed, most of the members said they did not see any reason to keep it commercial-in-confidence. What the committee did was honour the request from the minister that it be kept that way.
But in this new era of openness and accountability, the minister could release that report. It is his report. There is nothing that is commercial-in-confidence in the report. (Second speaking period taken.) I am just warming up. I could go all night. You know I love it. This is a great sector and it is a sector that is being ignored by this government. But the problem is that we are not getting the full story because the full story, particularly on Enlighten, is so embarrassing for this minister.
The minister made some very brave statements, which I thought was great. It was much better than previous ministers in this area. We asked the minister what he thought were the areas that we could expand into, and he said that we should get into more tourism, sport, aviation, and education and training industries. So the committee was thinking that the minister had plans and ideas and would have no trouble responding to recommendation 79, which was:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government table in the Legislative Assembly, by the first sitting day in December 2011, the industry development plans for the tourism, sport, aviation and education and training industries.
The minister had actually gone on to say that some of the other industries he thought would be good for the ACT were construction, information and communication technology, defence and science and technology industries. So what we did was we asked for some plans. We did not ask for them all in one hit. We said, “How about we have a batch by December, how about we have a batch by April 2012?” I think the one that bemuses most people the most is where the committee also recommended, at recommendation 82:
... that the ACT Government table in the Legislative Assembly its industry development plan for the “clean economy” by the first sitting day in February 2012.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video