Page 2802 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 August 2005
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My goodness me! I did not realise it was lost. It was not lost under the previous government because we talked and worked with the region. We put words into action. We made the connection. We were working to improve the entire region.
It is interesting that today’s motion has no objective analysis of what has been done. We have heard lots of words. We have said lots of things. We have patted ourselves on the back constantly throughout debate on the motion so far. But where is the objective, the quantitative analysis? Apparently it is coming. If there is a progress report, why are we doing this today? Why do we not have that progress report today so that we can objectively judge this government against what it has said? It is because the government did not say very much.
The reason the government did not say very much is that it has piled up a massive amount of reports and paperwork and bits and pieces that went into the plan. Now we have their version, published in the Canberra Times, where the ACT water strategy feeds into the ACT lowland-woodland conservation strategy, into the five-year recreation strategy, into the ACT Forests business case, into the non-urban study, into the urban edge, into the Stromlo option, which, of course, feeds into the Canberra spatial plan, which connects with the economic white paper and the social plan into the Canberra plan.
Mr Stefaniak: The knee bone is connected to the thighbone.
MR SMYTH: It is. The knee bone is connected to the thighbone. There it is. Why do we not have an objective analysis of all this supposed good work that has been done? It is because there is nothing to analyse. Mr Quinlan is holding up the economic white paper, the white paper that really has no targets, no timelines and no implementation plan in it, the same as most of these plans. The only targets that appear in these documents in the main are about 2013. They are not going to be judged in 2013. It will be impossible to measure them over those 13 years, not that anybody would remember them. They will simply disappear, just as the memory of this government will disappear.
The interesting thing about this motion is it is yet again a time-filler on private members day, a bit of self-congratulatory work by the backbench of the government in an attempt to fill up time. That is all it is. It is just a time-filler. If Mr Gentleman were serious about the progress of the implementation of the Canberra plan, he would have given us analysis, quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis of what had been achieved. The fact that he cannot produce any of that analysis indicates that there is nothing in this plan. This plan is a series of words that state the bleeding obvious, to quote the Treasurer, about where this city is going.
MR QUINLAN (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Business, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Minister for Racing and Gaming) (11.32): Talk about rewriting history! Mr Smyth, I think, amongst other things, accused us of potentially standing up and saying nothing happened before. Well, I will not say that. What I will say happened before was a Fujitsu deal that we are still paying for; an FAI deal; an Ansett call centre deal; the Waldorf Apartments deal; Capital Plastics, who actually just took the money and walked out of town and did not do a thing; TotalCare, which was an economic disaster; Williamsdale quarry, which cost us
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