Page 4263 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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Mr Lamont: That is not correct. You are a bad spin-doctor.
MR HUMPHRIES: The Chief Minister said that she felt that people would want to relocate for the purposes of having a better location in which to conduct their business. That is very close to the words she used. As I have said before, the point Mrs Carnell was making in her question - and it was a question, by the way, rather than an assertion - was that there needs to be an honouring of this vision about getting the thing to operate as a magnet for businesses outside the ACT. It is all very well to have businesses moving from one site to another in the ACT, but I wonder whether those sorts of developments are achieving anything in the long term for the ACT.
I understand, for example, that the Fern Hill development in Belconnen is still substantially underutilised and that there are plenty of capacities - - -
Mr Lamont: And it is not a manufacturing facility, you silly person.
MR HUMPHRIES: I realise that it is not the same thing. I realise that it is not the same sort of development. I am saying that there is still a question of how much extra capacity we need to be creating in this town in any of these areas. Whether it is a hi-tech industry, manufacturing, retail space, extensions to the Hyperdome, any of those things, we need to be asking ourselves whether there is an objective to be met here rather than simply activity for the sake of activity. That is the point I make. I think the Government is shuffling the cards to some extent, rather than dealing new ones, and that is a matter of concern to this Opposition.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (9.47): I appreciate the simple fact that Mr Humphries has chosen to speak on this, mainly because it once again demonstrates the ignorance of those opposite when it comes to matters of developing business in the ACT, and particularly business confidence. The Canberra Region Advanced Technology Manufacturing Association, CRATMA, was established during the last 18 months to do a number of things. First of all, it was designed to put forward a consistent industry view to Government, Opposition, the community, nationally and internationally, about the opportunities that exist in the ACT for advanced technology manufacturing. Advanced technology manufacturing, as one of its fundamental positions, builds on and lives on software development. It builds on the intellectual property of organisations such as Anutech, the CSIRO, the Australian National University, the University of Canberra, those very disparate private sector organisations that make up CRATMA, and those organisations that do the same job but are not necessarily members of that organisation.
CRATMA quite clearly have indicated a number of points. First of all, there is a concept of critical mass in business, particularly in the business they pursue. They need to be able to provide a location, an amenity, a facility, that generates within itself the development and manufacturing of technological outputs. In the ACT, Anutech spends $90m a year in developing the commercial concepts arising out of the ANU, derived from disparate organisations within the ANU. It is the commercial marketing arm. And what happens?
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