Page 1799 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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buildings, retro-fitting for energy efficiency, the feed-in tariff of which we have had the small scale—and I acknowledge that the ACT government, the Labor Party, has supported that over the years—and then there is the large scale. We are all very much looking forward to seeing the results of the large-scale solar feed-in auction. I very much hope that this will be structured in a way that supports local business and that it supports developing the local clean, green economy. I hope that this will be an instance when Mr Barr’s words about acknowledging and supporting local industry come into being.
Talking about supporting local industry, the waste area is one where we have had a lot of talk and not a lot of action. One of the things that we talked about a lot in last year’s estimates was a company called Renewable Processes, which does some very good recycling of e-waste. This is something which had been verbally supported by the ACT government but when push came to shove it did not actually happen. We know that the ACT has many businesses that start here, they often grow and then they leave Canberra, partly because we do not have the right environment, opportunities, employees, apprentices or appropriate land to keep them. Hopefully this strategy will make a difference.
We know that we have the right things in place at the bottom level. We have the research institutions, the universities and the federal government departments. We are a place of innovation in building renewable energy technologies. We have a commitment to a 40 per cent greenhouse gas reduction. This is where we should be going. While I am on this subject, why did we get rid of Canberra arts marketing? One part of a clean, green economy is supporting cultural and creative industries. We have a lot of them in Canberra but all we seem to support publicly in terms of the Canberra brand is the things that happen in the parliamentary triangle—the really big events. We have a lot of home grown, really good indigenous arts that we could be supporting. That is part of the clean, green economy.
I commend my amendment to the Assembly and I am pleased the government is in fact doing something about business now.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (12.17): I thank Ms Porter for moving this motion today. Same old Brendan, same old Caroline in response, but it is what it is, Mr Speaker. However, I digress.
As the territory enters its second century it is important that we recognise and take pride in the continuing strength of our economy. That might be a statement that even those opposite would agree with. Indeed, we need to look at new ways to continue the territory’s economic growth. The territory economy has been the envy of many around Australia and the world in the past decade. We have the highest average incomes in the country. We have the most skilled and educated workforce. Our unemployment rate has been below four per cent for a decade. We are experiencing robust population growth. Just last week CommSec’s state of the state reports showed the ACT ranked behind only the mining boom economy of Western Australia. However, we cannot take our current economic situation for granted.
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