Page 2839 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: I will wait until you children have stopped.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, your question.
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves has the floor. Let us have the question, thank you.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, the question.
MR HARGREAVES: I ask the Treasurer: will the government continue to place a large importance on economic growth in the territory?
MR BARR: Yes, we will. The economic policy objectives of the budget we released this week are all about sustaining growth in our economy. We recognise that there are challenges, given the large role that the commonwealth plays in our economy, with approaching 47 per cent of state final demand in terms of their consumption activities. Add another six or seven per cent in terms of their capital works programs, Mr Speaker, and you see that they account for more than half of state final demand in the ACT economy.
We recognise that in an economic environment where the commonwealth are contracting that it turns now to the territory government and to the private sector to grow this economy. Hence the policy settings within this budget allow for facilitation of growth through ACT government capital works programs and through our investment in important front-line services to the community, but also through the business development strategy to ensure a robust future for private sector growth in this economy.
It is very pleasing to see that, in spite of the cynicism and the catcalling from those opposite, the people who actually matter in Canberra, the people who care about the city’s future—those people who work hard every day to grow employment opportunities and economic opportunities in this city—strongly endorse the approach taken by the government in our business development strategy and in our budget strategy. It stands in marked contrast to the negativity of those opposite whose only policy agenda is to parrot Tony Abbott and whose only new ideas are to send this economy into recession. The Liberal Party is the party of recession in this city and it knows it. The Leader of the Opposition is tied to Tony Abbott. (Time expired.)
MR SESELJA: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.
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