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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 5022 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The original promise of Labor is reflected on page 4 of the ACT Labor policy, which is Labor's plan for developing industry. Under the section headed "White Paper", it states:

The results of this strategic review will be published as the ACT Economic White Paper, outlining the Government's implementation plans and targets.

If you run the word "target"through the electronic copy of the economic white paper that was delivered to members, it is interesting to find that it appears a dozen times, in the context of strategically targeted strategies or specific targeted groups, but it doesn't tell you what the targets are. This is a good example:

Initially the following sectors will be targeted:

Information and communication technology,

Space Sciences,

Biotechnology,

Public Administration,

Environmental Industries,

Creative Industries,

Sport Science and Administration,

Education; and

Defence.

The government tells you that it is going to target areas but refuses to define the areas. Perhaps the only real target that exists is for City West. Page 86 of the white paper states:

This study will be a key element in developing City West as one of the three targeted arts and cultural precincts ...

So City West is a target. We know that there will be three targeted arts and cultural precincts-City West, Civic Square and Kingston Foreshore-but we do not have any detail on how the targets will be achieved. I thought that the government had got it wrong and that perhaps there were goals specified in the document. So, again, courtesy of the electronic document that the government has provided, I looked up the word "goal". What is the government aspiring to achieve with this document? The goals are airy-fairy or somebody else's and you don't know what it wants to achieve, except perhaps for page 10, where it is stated:

It contains a range of government commitments to achieve the goal of making the ACT the most small business-friendly location in Australia.

I will talk about that goal in a few moments. Things that have happened or are about to happen in this place show that the government has no intention of becoming the most small-business-friendly location in Australia.

We had a promise that has been broken-a promise that clearly there was no intention to fulfil. This paper, which is signed off by the minister, says in the foreword:

At the policy level we will do this by:

being unashamedly pro-business and committed to actions that will make the ACT the premier business friendly location in Australia;

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