Page 4355 - Week 13 - Thursday, 11 December 2014
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I said that we face the most testing external economic environment in 20 years, and we do. I say this as well: we have never been more ready for the test. We are a city of brilliant possibilities. We are confident, we are bold and we are ready. This city is smart. This city is strong. This city is united. We are bigger, Madam Speaker, than the job in front of us. And for the Barr Labor government, it is time to get to work.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition), by leave: I would like to start by congratulating Andrew Barr on becoming Chief Minister. These are big responsibilities you take forward. It was a close vote; I was genuinely surprised.
But on a more serious note, Madam Speaker, our vision on this side is more focused on the people of Canberra than on the factions and on the Greens. As Chief Minister, my team and I will deliver greater growth in Canberra, we will deliver a better connected Canberra and we will restore our core services to once again being the best in Australia. Our vision on this side of the chamber is unashamedly to make Canberra the best place in Australia for everybody to raise a family, to make a living and to get ahead.
Madam Speaker, greater growth in Canberra means a bigger Canberra, a Canberra with a true city heart, with vibrant town centres, while ensuring that the suburbs where we live retain their character. We will improve our planning laws, we will fix the flawed system that is grinding development in this city to a halt, and we will deliver the policies to remove the unnecessary regulation and duplication which are strangling business in this city and restricting employment growth.
We will not sit idly by and blame the federal government, be it Liberal or Labor. I remind members that it was Kevin Rudd who took the meataxe to the federal public service and sacked 14,500 public servants. We will grow our own economy and we will create our own jobs, because it is the Liberals, and it always has been the Liberals, Madam Speaker, who are the friends of hardworking business across this city who create the jobs, create the wealth and drive the economic prosperity of our great city.
Madam Speaker, we will make this a better connected city. We do not have the disdain for cars that those opposite have. We will make sure that when people travel across this city to work, visit their friends and families, they will do so connected by the best road system in Australia.
Madam Speaker, we will improve our bus service because, in a city as spread out as Canberra, buses make sense and a tram does not. We will not squander a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money on a tram that simply gets 500 additional public transport users into the public transport system. That is not connecting Canberra. In the words of Dr David Hughes, it is not just a folly; it is a fantasy.
Madam Speaker, we will restore our core services so that once again they are the best in Australia—the core services of health, education, urban maintenance. Our health system is in crisis, and the cracks are now too wide for even Katy Gallagher to stay here to paper over. And many of our schools are overflowing, in the same areas where Andrew Barr in 2006 cut 23 schools as the education minister.
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