Page 1256 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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MR SPEAKER: The standing orders are not being breached at the moment.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, there is clearly no breach, and when issues as important as unemployment and youth unemployment are raised I think it is a matter of judgment about what is short and concise. The Assembly either wants to know the facts, or it does not. I can well understand that the Labor Opposition does not want to know, because the indications are good and its members would hate them. They hate that. They wish that the figures were bad. They are not, and I am quite happy - in fact, more than happy - to answer Mrs Nolan's question and put the facts on the table. I know that the Opposition does not like that; but you are going to have to wear it, I am afraid.
Mr Speaker, the Alliance Government is committed to creating a better commercial environment in which businesses can operate and develop the necessary competitive edge needed to win new markets and to diversify their operations. That is, in fact, exactly what is happening. That is why jobs in the private sector are now beginning to grow.
The third point that I wanted to make briefly is that a critical element in getting the environment right is balancing our own books. This Government has taken the right steps in ensuring that we can manage the process of transitional funding and, as the Grants Commission has shown, we must not be complacent. We have further hard decisions to take in the context of next year's budget in terms of fiscal management. This Government is committed to programs which will sustain and generate real job growth, which reflect sound management of our resources and our economy and which will, within the constraints imposed by Keating and the Federal Labor Government, lead to a dynamic and equitable ACT which will be the envy of the other States.
Executive Deputies
MR CONNOLLY: My question is to Mr Jensen, as chair of the planning committee. I refer to Mr Jensen's reported statement on ABC radio yesterday that he would not debate me on the decision to vary the Territory Plan to allow school sites to be flogged off because of a potential conflict between his role as Executive Deputy for planning and as chair of the planning committee. I ask Mr Jensen: Firstly, was this the real reason for declining debate, or was he merely ducking for cover; and, secondly, does this confirm the Opposition's longstanding argument that Executive Deputies should not chair committees within their portfolios because of the obvious potential conflict of interest?
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