Page 528 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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people with genuine skills in a position of authority was, of course, to tip the other side out of government five years ago, a mob with no skills then and, as time gallops on, we discover a mob with absolutely no skills now. It is an absolute rabble. Look at them—a rabble with no ideas, a rabble with no policies, a rabble with no credibility, a rabble with one policy, namely, not to collect over $100 million worth of charges if elected to government.
Mr Smyth: At the start of your answer there were no policies.
MR STANHOPE: Well that is the policy. I think this is a matter that we need to pursue with some gusto.
Mr Mulcahy: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not know what the relevance is of what the Chief Minister is saying to the question that was asked by Ms MacDonald about skills. He is on about taxation reductions and all sorts of things but I would like him to be brought back to the question.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Come to the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, I will. Of course, when the report of the Australian Hotels Association is tabled we will see the depth of Mr Mulcahy’s range of skills.
Mr Mulcahy: Point of order, Mr Speaker—
MR SPEAKER: Come back to the subject matter of the question, Chief Minister.
MR STANHOPE: There are some hidden skills there that we are all keen to discover.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR STANHOPE: The government has been responding to what it acknowledges as the most significant issue facing the community at the moment in relation to economic activity and the capacity of businesses around the territory, and indeed the capacity of all employers, to maximise the opportunities that are presented currently by an economy that is indisputably the strongest in Australia. As I have said on numerous occasions, to the extent that there is a significant labour force issue in the Australian Capital Territory today, it is a direct response to the fact that our economy is the strongest in Australia, that we have the lowest trend unemployment rate in Australia, trending at 2.67 per cent over the last four to five years, with a participation rate of just on 75 per cent—absolutely staggering statistics.
Over the last four to five months we have seen statistic after statistic and report after report revealing the extent to which the ACT government at every level of activity is outperforming the rest of Australia, with one or two exceptions in relation to the enormous advantage which the great commodity states in Western Australia and Queensland have in relation to commodity sales. But the downside, of course, to that is—not so much the downside; it is a wonderful position to be in, is it not, to have the strongest economy in Australia with the lowest unemployment rate, with the highest participation rate, with the greatest level of gross state product, with the greatest level
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