Page 2270 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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economy, the fifth largest contribution of all industries. The sector is the ACT’s second largest industry employer, providing jobs for more than 21,000 people, and it also has the largest number of active volunteers, which includes the health and community welfare sector.
There is a whole range of community services in the ACT, and we all know them: housing and homelessness, child protection, mental health, aged care, drug and alcohol, youth and family, women’s services—all of these areas. Again members have a strong engagement with these areas that are not only community service providers but an important part of our economy. Of course, under the Abbott and Turnbull governments we have seen significant job losses in these sectors as the result of cuts to community sector programs.
It would be remiss of me, in the time I have remaining, not to mention the arts sector. Again perhaps acknowledging the ghost of Mr Smyth, there are over 2½ thousand cultural and creative businesses here in the ACT. ACT government decisions and activities should aim to create a diversified economy that incorporates and fosters the arts sector. Of course, many people in the arts sector are individual artists. They are quite small businesses. They are, I guess, that true micro business in that sense. But that is certainly a part of our economy where we see a lot of scope to really support it and to help it thrive here in the territory.
Given all of these remarks, I cannot support the premise of Mr Wall’s motion. He may have some different ideas on how to do it, and I look forward to the Liberal Party actually delivering some policies in this space, because it has been a bit of a vacuum in recent years. But I cannot accept the premise of his motion and therefore I will not be supporting it today.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (5.35), in reply: To close, “fair, simple and efficient” were the lines that the Chief Minister used to describe what taxes should be in this city. You can easily argue that the rate increases that both residential and commercial property holders across the territory have seen have been anything but fair. They might be simple, they might economically be efficient, but the impact that they are having on business and family budgets is anything but fair.
I was actually very happy that Mr Rattenbury raised the issue of liquor licensing fees and the keep Canberra open campaign. It very much seems that, regarding a number of factors, what this government says and does in the lead-up to an election is not necessarily what you are going to get from government.
We have seen the backdown on paid parking in the Phillip business precinct, a move which would have slugged some of the lowest income earning individuals, who are trying to better themselves by doing a trade or an apprenticeship in that Phillip business precinct, with paid parking that would have taken as much as 20 per cent of their take-home pay in any given week. That has been suspended and further discussion has been happening, and we will not see a result of that, I dare say, until after the election. So be warned, everyone in this city, that what you hear from those opposite now is not necessarily what you are going to get after 15 October.
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