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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 168 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

such as Youth 500, which became Youth 1000. It actually created and found jobs and made sure that our young people had an opportunity for employment.

The honorary ambassadors program comes to mind. We charged Canberrans who love their city and who travel widely around the country and around the world with selling as honorary ambassadors the good message about Canberra, doing so all the way through to the work that is being done, for instance, in China, Japan and South Africa to make sure that we give business the opportunity to establish new links, new friendships and new markets. It will be interesting to see how much is cosmetic and how much is real in the establishment of Business Canberra.

The minister went on to talk about the region. It is great to see that the commitment to the region that was established, particularly through the regional leaders forum, will continue. Environmental considerations, the needs of people, business opportunities or whatever do not stop at the point where a border is shown on a map, so that commitment is very important. I am pleased that the Labor government will build on the commitment that we commenced.

Turning to the establishment of a knowledge-based economy board, I am sure that when this proposal was put forward the government did not understand that we already had an Information Industries Development Board, IIDB, because the statement reads:

Mr Speaker, it sounds pretty much like the IIDB. I sincerely hope that it will do better than the IIDB has done, because it has done very well. If the knowledge-based economy board can build on that and go one step further, it will be good for the ACT. But, let us be honest, these are not new initiatives; they are about things that are already in place.

The minister said that Business Canberra will be established to provide strategic advice. I believe that this proposal is simply cosmetic. It is an attempt to remove some people from one board and replace them with other people, but we live in hope that Business Canberra will do even better than CanTrade has done. CanTrade has done exceedingly well and I would acknowledge the efforts of all the members of the board, particularly Jim Murphy, who has been the chairman. An interesting thing about CanTrade which is worth putting on the record-maybe we should talk further about it in the future-is that that work was all voluntary. Thousands of hours of unpaid work was done for the benefit of the community and the members of that board are to be congratulated on that.

I was pleased to see the reference to the establishment of a small and micro business advisory council. Any assistance to business is welcome, because business creates jobs, wealth and assets which flow back into the community and add to the prosperity of the community which, through taxation, allows the government to carry out its social agenda, which is very important.

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