Page 3464 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.11—Economic Development Directorate—$75,236,000 (net cost of outputs), $182,145,000 (capital injection) and $7,772,000 (payments on behalf of the territory), totalling $265,153,000.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (8.51): In conjunction with the budget, it is reasonable to note that the Minister for Economic Development also recently released his business development strategy, “growth, diversification and jobs”. I am not sure what this means, however, for both the private sector and the ACT economy.
As some members will recall, we had an economic white paper in December 2003, when we were going to become unashamedly pro-business. That was rapidly abandoned, and then we had mark 2, in August 2008, in the lead-up to an election, oddly enough, when the government dropped “towards our second century”, which had nothing in it and was quickly lost.
So on its record, perhaps one will not be too surprised if “growth, diversification and jobs” delivers very little, because its father and grandfather also delivered very little. Sadly, I think it demonstrates the commitment of this government to the business community. The reality is in fact that its failure was quite stark.
Despite what might appear to be the minister’s best intentions, there is absolutely no doubt that during the 11 years of Labor government and Labor-Greens government in the ACT, private sector employment has fallen by 10 per cent as a proportion of total employment from 59 per cent in 2001-02 to 49 per cent in 2010-11. This is a very sad and sorry trend and it means that Labor and the Labor-Greens governments have set back the role and strength of the private sector in the ACT. At least the current minister knows how to say “diversification” even if the proof of any efforts to achieve diversification remain to be seen.
I also note that the Assembly earlier this week debated a motion of mine relating to the administration of the payroll tax regime in the ACT. My summary of the debate is that both Labor and the Greens have a completely anti-business sentiment. There was no recognition of the concerns which were raised by the community in my motion. There was no interest in this parliament on the part of Labor or the Greens to seek to resolve the legitimate concerns of the private sector and there was no suggestion of overriding the authority of anyone, contrary to what was said. On the contrary, my objective was to see if there could be a meeting of the minds, as it were, between the ACT Revenue Office and the private sector and any other relevant organisation to resolve the fundamental issues with the administration of payroll tax in the ACT. All I can now say is that I anticipate developments in this area of policy with considerable interest.
If we turn to tourism, I remain concerned about the approach of this government to encouraging growth in the most important industry after the public sector. Despite, or is it because of, the efforts of various ACT tourism ministers, visitation to the ACT of domestic and international travellers is still considerably lower than the level achieved in 2003-04.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video