Page 2243 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 June 2013
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Of course, the minister denies that he knows what is going to happen over the period. I think yesterday he was talking about 25 to 30 years from now. If rates go up by 10 per cent a year for the next 11 years, then they will have tripled in terms of what rates you are paying today. That is without taking into account any increases in the value of property.
Indeed, the Chief Minister appeared in ads saying, just like Julia Gillard, “No carbon tax under a government I lead. No tripling of rates under a government I lead.” The cat is out of the bag. The Chief Minister was unable to answer this morning when Mr Hanson asked her that question. They say, “It is all on the never-never. We have not made those decisions.” At the end of the day, if you want to get rid of those taxes, rates must triple. It is very simple mathematics.
It is not a stronger economy. They are not creating opportunity because in fact they have taken opportunity away from the business community. In 2006 they gutted the business programs, they gutted the tourism support and they are struggling now to get back into the game. They are just reinstating programs that either we had or they had. They have just rebadged and renamed them. It is interesting that the minister always says you should not have industry plans, that industry plans and funding industries are the past.
But the biggest commitment that this government have to a single industry is to NICTA, which sounds and looks and smells very much like an industry plan, all at a time when they have got no genuine vision to diversify the economy. We know that Mr Stanhope believed it could not be done. We know Ms Gallagher said we would always be a government town. We see no indication from this minister, apart from a document which was just a reciting of so many things that had gone before—a rebadging and a renaming. There is no genuine commitment to building a stronger economy and to creating opportunity and fairness at all.
Then, of course, we get to transformation, beginning the transformation of our city through major infrastructure projects to meet the challenges of our second century. Transformation appeared, I think, nine or 10 times in the speech yesterday. “Transform”, “transformation”—somebody has got a buzz word. Joel Fitzgibbon-like, they have got their sheets that say, “You must say ‘transformation’ three times a day to meet your KPI as a member.”
There they are. They are all out transforming the world! But it comes after 12 years of neglect. The city has been neglected by this government for a decade, except where they sold off blocks of land to try and balance their budget or to fuel their cravings for spending. Bits and pieces have been sold off willy-nilly without any view. This government do not have a plan for the city. After 12 years this government still do not have a plan for the city.
Of course, there are three documents from the last Liberal government: “Building our city”, “Creating our city”, “Our city”. They were used by the OECD for their urban renaissance document. There were plenty of plans. Terry Snow had the sense to see that Civic needed a plan and put his own money into it which, of course, Mr Corbell,
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