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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2274 ..
MS TUCKER
(continuing):Finally, we get to the question of economic sustainability, which the past few years have shown is something more than bed nights, technology and wineries. ACTCOSS has contributed a couple of papers to the government's economic white paper process in which it has explored the value of creating employment for people facing long-term unemployment. In essence, jobs in the community sector have high value for the community, provide job pathways and skill enhancement, and tend to have a high local multiplier effect.
MR SPEAKER
: Order! Your time has expired, Ms Tucker. Would you like to take your other 10 minutes?MS TUCKER
: Thank you. ACTCOSS also argued that the benefits to the community in terms of increased social engagement, lower crime rates and greater participation in volunteer activities are equally valuable in providing further promotion of employment and in bringing down costs.The recent social and demographic profile of multicultural Canberra identified the key factor for poor health and employment outcomes as being poor English. Information and communications technology, blue rooms for multimedia games or national sports events will not help these people to give more and need less from our community.
This government appears to have no policy for creating employment for those who need it most. Obviously, as a boutique size, reasonably well off capital city we are well placed to develop a profile in emerging industries, such as environmental remediation and ecologically sensitive design, but if we want an economically sustainable society we need to ensure that the social and environmental base are strong first, and employment creation, lifelong education and social support are all basic to that formula. This budget does not appear to bring these ingredients together. I understand that the spatial plan, the white paper and the social plan are intended to do that job. Too many choices have already been made, however, that have the government pointing in different directions to be entirely confident that such a sustainable Canberra is on the cards.
Mr Smyth has moved an amendment. I will speak briefly to that. I will not be supporting it. I spoke to Mr Smyth about it and he said, "Don't worry, it won't get up."I do not think that that is satisfactory; you just do not play games with amending a budget in that way. The amendment could get up. The question that you would have to ask then is: what precedent are we setting here? I have not been briefed on this amendment. I am certainly not prepared to support an amendment to the budget that I knew nothing about until it was tabled and moved by Mr Smyth.
I remember that in the last Assembly we went through this dilemma with the Liberals because they had money for free school buses, which was stridently opposed by many of us in the Assembly. I remember we went through the thinking on that at that time, too. At the time, Mr Berry, I think, was going to move for the removal of the money from the budget and we realised in that discussion that there would be no real control over the outcome of that anyway, particularly with a small amount like this one. The government could continue to employ media people and have this media unit and the money could come from somewhere else because they have control of the spending.
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