Page 1436 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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the community, but it is not enough to get it shovel-ready. Indeed, with the Greens-Labor agreement, which will cease in 2016, they will have to put significant funds in to get it shovel-ready by 2016. Those funds should appear in the coming budget. That is what this motion is about.
It is interesting that Mr Rattenbury talked about the prospect of a new convention centre. Is it a prospect or is it a reality that we will get a new convention centre under this government? The downgrading and the use of the word “prospect” are of concern to me. He said that convention centres are a source of economic opportunity. If they are, why haven’t you cashed in? We have had budget after budget where the ACT government has said that the greatest impact on the ACT economy would be a downturn in federal funding. We all know that; we all appreciate it. But that again highlights your failure: it was not ready to go when the opportunity came to ask for some funding.
Mr Rattenbury and Mr Barr both talked about job losses. I regret the job losses, and I have said that to my federal colleagues. These people are real. This is an impact on families. But we did not hear the same sort of language from those opposite when it was simply “fiscal consolidation” under the Rudd government. And we have had them outed by the head of finance when he said, I think, that 14,457 jobs will go as a consequence of Labor’s budgets and policies. Then it was fiscal consolidation—a glib line from a glib Treasurer.
In his speech, Mr Barr acknowledges that he has not done the work. I do not think he used the words “shovel-ready” once. He could not bring himself to say them, because he knows he has failed. This government has failed the business community. Through that failure, it has failed all the people of the ACT, because it has not taken up the opportunities that every other state and territory in this country have. In the time that we have been talking about this, in some cases they have extended once, if not twice, or built completely new facilities.
Mr Barr: And we have completely refurbished our existing one.
MR SMYTH: The minister says, “We have completely refurbished our facility.” That was because some of it was an OH&S issue, some of it was because the roof was leaking, and some of it was because the equipment was out of order.
Mr Barr: That over $30 million was spent means nothing!
MR SMYTH: If the $30 million had been spent on getting the business case ready, we might have had a new convention centre by now. We may well have had a new convention centre by now. Many said that this is money that could be used for that purpose.
We have lots of excuses. “It is not shovel-ready.” “It is impossible to approach the federal government.” What I am advised is that it will have to go through Infrastructure Australia. As with the attempt to get capital metro funded by Infrastructure Australia under the Labor government, they failed. They have failed to do the work.
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