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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3288 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

A policy that seeks to denigrate the role of the private sector and downplay its importance, or fails to adequately provide incentives for the private sector to grow, would be a policy of great concern to the private sector of this town and therefore would be a problem for the creation of jobs in the future in this town. Mr Quinlan maintains that things such as 11.8 per cent growth in the ACT economy, and a 4.3 per cent unemployment rate, are mere matters of accident. They are nothing to do with what the government is doing; it just happens, as if people do not have any kind of influence on these things when they are sitting on government benches.

Mr Speaker, they are important. The public sector continues to play an important role in the future of this town, but the private sector's role is increasing as every year goes past. The comment that I was making to the committee-

Mr Quinlan: The private sector's proportion of State Final Demand is decreasing.

MR HUMPHRIES: If Mr Quinlan would be kind enough to hear me out. I heard his question without interruption and I hope he will hear my answer without interruption. If Mr Quinlan wants to have a debate about whether the importance of the private sector is 51 per cent as opposed to 49 per cent, then we can have that debate in some sterile environment. I am happy to have that kind of debate. The point that I am making is that we cannot afford to overlook that sector, and we need to have policies in place to grow the private sector in this town. We cannot afford, and do not need, policies to grow the public sector in the ACT. We do not have the capacity to do that. We have spent much of the last five years decreasing the size of the ACT public sector, which serves the ACT government.

I might remind Mr Quinlan, before he becomes too upset about that knowledge-and I know Mr Berry has become upset about it before-that the former Labor government spent tens of millions of dollars trying to do exactly the same thing. $17 million were put aside in the budget in, I think, 1993, to make sure that we reduced the size of the ACT public sector. We acknowledge that we cannot grow that sector, but we do not acknowledge that we can grow the private sector. We should be doing that.

State Final Demand is one measure of our success in doing that. In my view, Mr Speaker, the other indicators I have quoted today, such as employment growth and growth of the economy as a whole, are also valid indicators of the success of that philosophy of growing the private sector.

MR QUINLAN: Treasurer, has it come as something of a surprise to you that the rate of growth in the government proportion of State Final Demand has grown marginally faster since the election of the Carnell government, emphasising the blinding dishonesty of the claims of diversification that have been strongly trumpeted over the last few years?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, does Mr Quinlan seriously rise in this place to tell us that we do not have a diversified economy now, and that our economy is not more diversified than it was five to 10 years ago?

Mr Quinlan: It is still dependent on the Commonwealth government-your own words. Only you did not read them, did you?

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