Page 1599 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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We will do this at the policy level by being unashamedly pro-business and committed to actions that will make the ACT the premier business friendly location …
Indeed, so strong was that commitment I think they actually adopted it as one of their principles. Yes, principle 2 is that the government aims to make the ACT the most business-friendly location in Australia. I looked for a reiteration of that commitment in the capital development document, and it is not there. It has been abandoned—four principles, nine key industry, 47 actions versus three themes. You can see quite clearly the government’s attempt to diversify the ACT economy have failed, and that is why we give it a fail mark on this.
It is interesting that Ms Hunter asked what we would do. Well, we have put numerous ideas on the table. We actually said we wanted to talk to you at an economic roundtable, but you did not like the way the invitation arrived. So forget principle: “No, we’re not going into that conversation because the invitation arrived in a means unacceptable.” We offered to discuss our ideas at a roundtable, and I am not aware of any opposition doing that anywhere before, and all points to Mr Seselja for offering that. But we were turned down fairly and squarely by the ALP and by the Greens. We were turned down. So to stand here and say, “Tell us your ideas,” is nonsense. We wanted to sit down with you and tell us our ideas, but you did not want to come to the table. That is the problem.
What have we done? We have said for years that there are so many opportunities that the ACT could follow if the government had the wherewithal. Let us go back to no waste by 2010. That is an opportunity that should be dear to the Greens’ hearts. Fundamental to that was the development of business opportunities to make sure that we achieved that target. No waste by 2010 became no action by 2010, because it was abandoned by this government.
We said the government should help firms like Revolve. On the one hand the government wanted to be socially responsible and help people through the job creation that they wanted to do, which was a great thing, but on the other hand they wanted Revolve to help them achieve this no waste target, and it was locked out of the tip by John Hargreaves. It was locked out of the tip and given no assistance to help achieve that objective. That was a very simple, very practical thing this government could do that we had asked for.
Through the late eighties we said, “Let’s develop an ICT sector,” and we did. That culminated in the winning bid for NICTA. That is a Liberal Party initiative. We said, “Biotech is the way of the future,” and we put together the winning bid that saw the establishment of Epicorp. That is a Liberal Party initiative. In the greenhouse gas strategy that I put out, we said there was opportunity to develop sustainability industries because we needed solutions that did not currently exist. Seven years of Labor government, particularly of the Chief Minister, has seen our target and the objective abandoned. It has put forward the most wishy-washy greenhouse strategy in the country.
In 2002 I suggested film. In 2003 we said, “Creative Canberra”; go for the sunrise industries. In 2006 we put down our plan for a convention centre, a convention centre
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