Page 315 - Week 01 - Thursday, 27 February 2014
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A number of the regional leaders came together for a function at Parliament House but there was nobody from the government there. There was nobody from the government. The Canberra Liberals were there. There was a delegation from China there but nobody from the government could make it. That is why this government stands condemned. Yes, I think the word “condemned” is in all the recommendations. I think it is in all of them. It should be because it deserves to be there.
What we have had is a government that for 12 years failed to properly engage with the surrounding regions, and they should be condemned for that. They should be condemned for not having a clear definition of what the region is. They should be condemned for their confused and complicated approach to regional affairs. They should be condemned for failing to have a regional development strategy for the past 12 years. They should be condemned—the Chief Minister should be condemned—for failing to have a vision for the future for Canberra and its surrounding region. They should be condemned for failing to capitalise on the economic opportunities that the region presents—not just the region but the ACT. They should be condemned for failing to deliver an appropriate integrated infrastructure plan for the region. They should be condemned for the failure to show leadership on the issue.
A number of the councils were vehement in the way that they said they had been treated by the former Chief Minister. They called him patronising and dismissive. They said that he had a dismissive attitude to surrounding councils. That is your legacy. That is where we have come from. You have got this hotchpotch approach. It is like so many plans that the government puts together. They will have a release. There will be a nice glossary. I remember Jon Stanhope saying in opposition that there will not be circuses and there will be not be stunts. But really this is a government of circuses and stunts. The biggest circus has been your approach to regional development for which you all should be condemned.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Health and Minister for Higher Education), by leave: I thank members for leave to add a few comments to the tabling of these documents today. I would congratulate Mr Smyth on an excellent address to the Assembly—one of classic political spin, of managing to hide the embarrassment of having to table the work—if you can call it a report—of the Select Committee on Regional Development and trying to turn it into a diatribe against the government.
It should come as no surprise that this is the input that the Canberra Liberals have been prepared to have in regional development. You do quote one quote from me in this report where you say, “It is a very genuine attempt to involve the Assembly in the regional discussion.” You have had the good honour of putting that quote in, which is exactly what we were seeking to do with the select committee.
Yes, the government is doing a range of work. We will do that regardless but this was also an attempt to enlist the interests and ideas of all Assembly members into how we grow and support the capital region. If you look back on my record on what I have been doing in regional development in the last two years we have made more progress in regional development than I think there has been since self-government.
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