Page 1445 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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In paragraph (f) I say that these projects will not generate the desired investment and jobs growth in the ACT. It was interesting in last year’s estimates process that the advisers said to us, “You will not get the uplift that the government say they will get from capital metro.” It never happens. They made it quite clear that it does not happen. The Liberal members wanted to get more information. The Labor members refused. It is a shame that we do not get some independent analysis of the uplift. The government talk about it being “transformational”. Well, it is a glib word. Keep using it. I do not think you are convincing anybody when your own consultation says, “Stop talking about it; just get on with it.”
We have had in the last couple of days a whole lot of programs where we have seen that the government has not delivered. What about Mr Corbell’s City Hill: a concept for the future? Nine years, and nothing has happened. With the bush healing farm, it was probably closer to nine years from when it was first mooted to when it was completed. With the secure mental health facility it has been about nine years again.
This is not a government that delivers. The GDE: double the time and quadruple the budget. Yes, there are some jobs and, yes, there will be some investment, but I do not think, because of the way they deliver them and the poor management of them from this government, that we truly get the value that we should from those projects.
With respect to paragraph (g), we have just had a debate on this. The government have failed to get funding for a new convention centre—and not just from the Liberal government; they could not get anything out of the Labor government either. We now have this extraordinary admission from the Chief Minister that they are not taking the lead on this; it is not their project. You can ask the question: whose is it? The government should show some leadership in this sphere and make it happen.
Paragraph (h) says that the ACT government have thus far failed to stimulate and further expand its support for the local private sector over the last 13 years. I think that is a true statement. You can see that clearly as a percentage. There was 60 per cent private employment when they came to office; it is now approximately 50 per cent. This is the government that in 2006 cut all the business programs. We heard for years Minister Barr talking about business welfare: “I’m not in the manner of giving out business welfare.” How about providing business with the framework to make it work?
They cut tourism, as we note in paragraph (j). They cut tourism funding by a quarter. It truly slowed down the tourism numbers and the tourism numbers are only just now getting back to the 2003 levels. That is despite the growth in population et cetera over a decade. Again, the litany is long and it is sad in the ways that this government have failed this community.
Paragraph (i) says that the government’s clean energy schemes have caused discord in regional communities in New South Wales. They talk about working with the local community but they do not do what they preach. There are lots of words. When you look at their actions, they are arrogant, they are out of touch and they do what suits them rather than living up to the expectations that they create.
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