Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1383 ..

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is very hard yelling over those opposite. The Federal budget that was brought down yesterday had an additional $20m that will be spent over four years - that is $5m a year - for work on the Parliamentary Triangle. That will be for the restoration of the reflection pond at Old Parliament House, for footpaths and bicycle paths round Lake Burley Griffin, for upgrading of Regatta Point and for restoration of the Australian-American Memorial. In addition, $85m will be spent on the continuation of the Russell Offices redevelopment, there will be $4m of new money for the ongoing Old Parliament House refurbishment, and $7m will go towards refurbishment of galleries at the War Memorial.

Of course, a couple of the projects are projects that I really wanted to be in this budget. I am interested that those opposite believe that this is somehow a disaster for Canberra. Having the new infrastructure borrowing tax rebate in this budget gives the very fast train project a significantly greater chance of going ahead. If there is one single project that is going to make a difference to this city, it is that one. We also saw the Federation Fund of $1 billion. A billion dollars is to go to projects related to Federation, one of them being the National Museum, which will open in 2001 - obviously one of the major events of our Federation year. I think that is very important to Canberra.

We were also pleased to see that no further reductions to the Australian Public Service were announced. The 3,500 to 4,000 in this budget are not acceptable, and we have said that time and time again; but the line that we were running with our Federal colleagues was that what was important to us was to ensure that there were no further reductions. I would have liked them to reverse their last year's budget, and we argued heavily for them to do so; but, on the basis that they did not, we had to make sure that there were no further reductions this year, and there are not. The reductions that will occur in this coming year are flow-ons from decisions that were made last year. That does not make it easy.

The similar number of Australian public servants who were shed from the ACT work force last year were absorbed in the ACT jobs situation. In fact, 5,600 new jobs have been created since the budget we brought down last year. There are 3,800 extra jobs in the system since we came to power two years ago, which shows that our budget strategy is working and that we can pick up the slack from the Federal Public Service. The whingers, moaners and jolly complainers should get off their bottoms and get positive about this city.

MRS LITTLEWOOD: My question is to the Minister for Land and Planning. Yesterday Mr Whitecross was complaining about the Government's proposed release of commercial land for auction. I wonder whether the Minister could inform the Assembly, in particular Mr Whitecross, about the results of this morning's auction and the benefits to the people of Tuggeranong in particular.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .