Page 3805 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 24 August 2011
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Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Barr.
MR SMYTH: that cuts to the National Gallery of Australia would be good for the people of ACT is just absolutely amazing. It is interesting that Mr Barr raised the question of the proportion of workforce in public and private. He said that we were quoting from 1996. It is not true. I was quoting figures from 2001. And they are the same figures—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Barr, please.
MR SMYTH: After 3½ years of hard work from the Carnell government helping to restore the balance, Kate Carnell stood up for Canberra. She expressed on behalf of her government her disquiet with what the federal Liberals had done. So let us give credit where credit is due.
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: One moment, Mr Smyth, please. Stop the clocks, thank you. Mr Barr, I have asked you a number of times; I do not want to have to warn you. Mr Smyth should be heard in silence.
MR SMYTH: The problem for the people of the ACT is that, when this boom and bust cycle comes when federal governments of all persuasions do what they do to the territory, we have not learned the lessons of Kate Carnell under 10 years of Labor. Kate Carnell worked very hard at diversifying the ACT economy. She got into trouble for it sometimes, but the aim was honourable. The intent was to try and wean us off as much dependence on the federal government as we could. That is not to dishonour the commonwealth public service. They are a great institution. It is great to have them here and it is great to have them as the base to our economy, as it is with the ACT public service. But if you want to grow, then the growth must come from somewhere else.
I will read the editorial from the Canberra Times of 26 July, which followed the Deloitte Access Economics report about attempting to diversify:
The need to reduce the Territory economy’s heavy reliance on public sector spending might seem self-evident to the ACT Government and its economic planners, but it appears the exercise is not as well advanced as might have been hoped.
In its latest quarterly outlook, Deloitte Access Economics notes that one in two Canberrans is a public servant, the same ratio as existed when the Territory gained self-government in 1989. This is all the more disappointing since a decade after self-government, only two in five workers was employed in the public sector.
(Time expired.)
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