Page 3050 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Smyth!
MR SMYTH: Your problem is that you will not acknowledge your failings. And you fail.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Smyth!
MR SMYTH: You fail on so many counts.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, address the chair.
MR SMYTH: Through you, Madam Speaker, you fail in your planning; you fail in your tax, you fail in your land release; you fail to listen. Go back to the recent Sensis report. Go back to the one before last which had them rated well below the federal government at that time—well below. The people in the ACT thought the government’s policies were hurting their businesses. That is what you fail to acknowledge. I think this report shows that the business spirit in Canberra lives on despite the government, and I congratulate all those entrepreneurs who had the gall, the stamina, the strength, the courage, the bravery—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr!
MY SMYTH: despite their lack of confidence in this government’s policies to go out and do it anyway. Dr Bourke lauded the arrival of IKEA. Well, IKEA is not creating new jobs. IKEA will see the transference of jobs out of Fyshwick where small businesses are going broke because the government gave preferential treatment to IKEA.
Mr Barr: We did not.
MR SMYTH: The government assisted IKEA.
Mr Barr: We did not.
MR SMYTH: Actually, that is not true. I heard the government ignored IKEA for about 18 months. IKEA tried several times to come to Canberra and the government would not even talk to them. The problem is you have a government that wants to take the credit but fails to acknowledge—
Mr Barr: You have got absolutely nothing. Fifteen years in opposition and you have nothing.
MR SMYTH: There we go—straight to the slur. If you cannot argue on the facts you go straight to the slur. It is the standard operating procedure of Andrew Barr.
Mr Barr interjecting—
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