Page 590 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
As I have said in this place many times, 54 organisations and businesses have signed a document saying that this is their number one priority. I certainly hope—and I think through this recommendation the committee says this—the government will take note of that.
Recommendation 12 looks at diversifying the economy:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government continue to diversify the ACT economy and grow the private sector in the ACT.
We have had much discussion about that in the last couple of days and I am pleased to see that at last the government is using the word “diversify”. It is a word they, for many years, chose not to use but it is important, if we are going to have a future, to have more than just public sector jobs. They are, of course, important but the private sector will add much more to this city as well.
Recommendations 13 and 14 look at the future of racing in the ACT, particularly the co-location and call on the minister to table the report on the co-location when it is available.
Recommendation 15 perhaps has been overtaken by events and we will wait and see what the government tables following the Chief Minister’s amendment to my amendment to Mr Barr’s amendment to Mr Coe’s motion yesterday. But recommendation 15 is important:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government’s review of the Lease Variation Charge include: the effectiveness of the objectives of the Charge—in particular, its estimated and actual revenue returns, impact on development, housing affordability and funding upgrades to Canberra’s urban amenities as part of the Urban Improvement Fund.
I think most people thought, when the government said they were going to review it, there might be somebody outside the government doing the review. Apparently the review was basically done by cabinet. So we will wait and see what the documents are. But recommendation 15 still stands, and I think is very important.
For those who have been in this place for some time, Chris21, the HR system for the ACT public service, made an appearance again and, again, there is a recommendation that the government needs to inform the Assembly of the outcome of the review so that we know we are getting best value for money and effectiveness from our systems.
I would like to include one final note. As always, the extracts of minutes are attached so that people know the thoroughness with which the public accounts committee goes through its reports. I refer to pages 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 where we went through, under the new standing orders, every paragraph, paragraph by paragraph. The standing orders of course allow for paragraphs to be done by lots, but one member of the committee particularly thought we should do it paragraph by paragraph, which I am always happy to do. As you can see, it does take up a lot of time and effort, and this is the problem with passing standing orders quickly, as it was done. You do maybe get an unintended outcome.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video