Page 1427 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR BARR: Yes, the Chief Minister has reminded me that NICTA is to be defunded from 2016. So another great win, brilliant outcome! The Liberal Party is once again demonstrating their complete lack of commitment to this city. It is just as well we have a Labor government locally that is prepared to invest in the future of Canberra, that is prepared to grow this economy, that has a track record of creating 10 new jobs every day for 10 years on average.
Whilst we have been in government, 36,000 new jobs have been created in this economy under this government’s watch; on average, 10 new jobs every day for 10 years. Last night what did we see? 7,500 jobs were cut by the Liberals. The Liberals cut jobs. The Liberals cut Canberra. The Liberals cut jobs and make significant cuts to infrastructure in Canberra, to social programs in this city and to our employment base.
What we are going to see is a continuation of that approach. So it falls to the territory government and to the private sector to drive economic growth in Canberra. We intend to take up that challenge, Madam Speaker, with or without the support of the Canberra Liberals.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.27): It gives me great pleasure to get up again to support one of Mr Smyth’s motions calling on us to get on with the convention centre. We all understand the passion that Mr Smyth has for this issue. I think everybody now understands the arguments. He has made the case repeatedly. There is no doubt in this chamber that one thing that we do agree on is that a convention centre would bring great economic opportunity to this town. What we disagree on is what happened, the history of why we are in the position where essentially nothing has happened and the way forward. So I commend Mr Smyth. If I get time at the end of my speech I will talk in more detail about the case for a convention centre. But as I said, I do think that that has been articulated well today and previously in this place.
I reflect that when the case was last made—and the motion was moved by Mr Smyth in October last year—he actually called on the government to table the work done on the investment-ready plan “by the last sitting day of this year”, that being 2013, and called on the government to establish a trust and get this ball rolling. Mr Smyth has articulated today why the ACT government failed to secure federal funding. What was needed was a shovel-ready plan, an investment-ready plan, to be presented to the federal government so that they could get on with the business of supporting the building of infrastructure to create jobs.
But what this government has failed to do is what they promised they would do—and it is in the Greens-Labor agreement. They said they were going to do this. They have not. We called on them in October 2013 to do this and they did not. Then they went up to the feds saying, “We have not done what we were supposed to do. We have not done our homework. Can you do this for us?”
While we in the Canberra Liberals are saying, “Let us get on with this, let us get it shovel ready, let us put the $10 million on the table to get this working now so that the federal government or private investors can get involved in this project to bring
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video