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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1261 ..

MR WOOD: When the Chief Minister and her deputy get up they do not say "across Australia". They infer that it is within the ACT; to such an extent that on commercial radio 2CC a month ago, or thereabouts, the statement came through, although not in the Ministers' words, that 18,000 Commonwealth public servants have disappeared from Canberra in that time. That is the intention of the words that you two use to try to confuse the issue. Not only that; when you use that 18,000 statistic, the 18,000 separations, you - - -

MR SPEAKER: Order! Relevance, Mr Wood.

MR WOOD: Read the motion, if you please.

MR SPEAKER: I have just read it. That is why I am calling your attention to it.

MR WOOD: We are talking about generating employment, Mr Speaker. I know that they do not want me to get onto this line. When you use that 18,000 figure you do not then put the other side of it, the employment, the new positions and the growth that has occurred at the same time. Of course large numbers of people leave any organisation, but what is the net figure? That would be the significant figure. The net figure for Canberra in the last four years shows that public sector employment by the Commonwealth increased. It did not decrease; it increased. If you wanted to be honest, and I know that you do not, that is the figure you would use.

MR MOORE (11.58): Mr Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Billy-come-lately to this process. I guess that one of the great disappointments is that Mr Wood did not join our committee when we did the capital works hearings. We would welcome him. Let me once again extend the invitation for whenever we have a hearing.

That having been said, Mr Speaker, I could not agree more with the motion that Mr Wood has put up. It is an excellent motion. It reiterates the recommendations of the Planning and Environment Committee in terms of capital works, although not quite so specifically. Mr Wood has drawn some specifics, some of which we had recommended and some of which we had not. The third recommendation of the committee, as set out in paragraph 3.18 of its report, reads:

the Government endorse a broad range of capital works projects for the preparation of forward designs, in order to quickly substitute a lower priority project for one that is on the final Program but which encounters unforeseen difficulties in its implementation.

In other words, when we set aside $100m-plus each year for capital works, we should be ensuring that $100m-plus continues on to the capital works. Why, Mr Speaker? Because we know, amongst other things at this particular time, as far as jobs go, that 15 jobs per $1m appears to be about the right order for the amount of works. I use Mr Osborne's figure. It is the same figure, by the way, that our committee used in previous years. We know that capital works are labour intensive, Mr Speaker.

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