Page 1787 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I think the conversation we just had was quite instructive about the shift in the Carnell era and around the changes that the Howard government brought to the ACT. People simply went from being public servants to being consultants doing largely the same role. I must say that to me that does not seem like diversification of the economy. It is just a shift from the public sector to the private sector. That is not really the kind of diversification the Greens have had in mind when we have talked about the economy.
The ideas that we have put on the table have been, I think, rather more broad than that and I think much more about diversification than shifting. We have certainly consistently called for work to be done on greening our ACT economy and trying to position the ACT to be at the forefront of future industries and evolving industries that are about delivering green technologies, green services and green products in a world in which we increasingly need those things.
But it is not simply limited to the green economy. We certainly have always said that there are other areas where changes can be made. We certainly think that is one place where there are significant opportunities. I believe some of those measures are already underway and some of them certainly warrant further work.
Before I go into what some of those ideas are, I was looking at the issue of data and the comments in Mr Smyth’s motion. I noted what Mr Barr said. Certainly, the information that I have been able to obtain on the composition of the ACT workforce comes from ABS census data. What it points to is what Mr Barr cited. In 2001 the private sector was 57.5 per cent. In 2006 it was 60 per cent and in 2011 it was at 56.4 per cent. What we actually see there is that it moves around a little. I suspect that in the ACT the number of jobs that we have probably largely reflects the shifts in the commonwealth government.
Mr Barr presented some graphs at the budget breakfast this morning. I am pretty sure they are in the budget papers, although I cannot recall which page. They show that around 2011 we saw a very substantial increase. We had seen over a period of time a very substantial increase in the number of people working in the commonwealth public service. That is likely to have pushed those figures around. I think it is probably a more in-depth analysis than just a proportion. As the biggest employer in town, I think the behaviour of the commonwealth is going to have a significant impact there.
Mr Barr also spoke about the total number of persons employed. If you look at these ABS stats, you can see the numbers moving around quite substantially. Again, the number of people employed I think will play out in that. I think it is much more subtle, or at least more nuanced, than just a figure of 60 per cent, 55 per cent or something like that. For me, it is much more about what are we actually striving to achieve.
I think there are a number of issues. There are certainly things that I would particularly emphasise in the way I think the ACT economy could be reformed and the places in which some of that diversification would come. For me, one of them is government investment in large projects that make Canberra more sustainable, and I put light rail into that category. I heard the comments Mr Smyth made earlier about
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video