Page 1023 - Week 03 - Thursday, 23 March 2017
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question is: what has been going on for the past 16 years? This goes to the nub of the issue. This is a government that has neglected Woden. It is not just the town centre; if you go down to Phillip, to the business district there, or you go to the surrounds, you will see that Woden has been left to rot over the past 15 or 16 years by the ACT Labor government. Ms Cheyne says that we are just starting the conversation. This is not a conversation that should have just been started in 2017.
The reality is that the only reason we are having this conversation is the good work of the community council. They have been very active in this space. I commend them for raising this as an issue. I went out with the president of the community council. I posted it on Facebook and put it in my newsletter. Hey presto; we have the Labor Party now starting to pay attention. Regardless, it is good that after 15 years we have people who are paying attention. I commend the community council for what they are doing.
With regard to the buildings that have been vacated, as Ms Cody said, these were buildings that needed to be vacated. They are old; they are unsuitable. But let me quote the person who owns the building. Doma Group general manager Ivan Domazet said:
… the potential lease variation charge and now the proposed Icon Water charge meant the development was “financially unviable” …
I say that again: the lease variation charge. This is a policy that we took to the last election that would greatly assist in the revitalisation not just of the Woden town centre but of other town centres. It has been stated by people who could get out there and revitalise Woden, but they are being hamstrung in doing that because of the punitive tax regime of the ACT Labor government.
With regard to the loss of jobs in Woden, I am sure we all regret that. But let me make it very clear and put it on the record: the jobs that were cut were cut by the federal Labor government. The decision to cut 14,500 jobs was made by the federal Labor government.
There are members here who were not here last term and involved in this debate. I refer you to parliamentary hearings on the hill on 13 November 2013, in the lead-up to the last election, about the decision to cut jobs, to put those job cuts in. Let me go to evidence provided by Mr David Tune, who was the Secretary of the Department of Finance. He made it very clear—I can give you the media article from the Canberra Times if you like—that Labor’s public service cuts could hamper the coalition’s plans. The reality is that with the vast bulk of the cuts that we saw, the decision was made by the federal Labor government.
There is evidence; you can go to the federal parliament website and have a look at the evidence in the transcript or go to the media articles about this. Let me quote:
In a Senate estimates hearing on Monday, Finance Department secretary David Tune said the “raw” data underpinning the 14,500 number had been progressively placed on the public record as the decisions were made by Labor.
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