Page 1945 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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acknowledge the progress that is made under those sorts of documents, but also aim higher, have different sorts of goals, and put those in place.
That is certainly what happened with the social plan. I do not see that it is vastly different that we would be looking at those sorts of reviews going on with the other part of the pillar of the Canberra plan which, of course, was the economic white paper. It is quite timely to review the territory’s economic strategy. The white paper served as an important framework, but economic times have changed.
We do want to point out that we do have some concerns with the capital development paper. It is based on a hands-off framework emphasising deregulation and government getting out of the way at a time when there is widespread recognition that this is not necessarily the best pathway to take, that there is still a role for government in regulation and in monitoring.
The capital development paper builds on the territory’s economic growth path but does not provide a road map for how the territory can change direction to a more genuinely sustainable economy. This is something that I spoke about last night and also this morning. It relates to the importance of looking at a sustainable economy, looking at how we are able to build those new businesses, services and jobs. A lot of this capital money going in is providing us with some opportunity, particularly when we are looking at energy efficiency measures in buildings and so forth. That does allow an opportunity for businesses to be there to provide services. But we need to be going a lot further to look at how we can be very innovative and creative here in the ACT about how we can green the economy—look at the green collar jobs, look at the green businesses—because we believe that is a sustainable way to the future.
My Smyth has raised this morning how under the Carnell government—the previous Liberal government—about 60 per cent of people were employed in the private sector. We also understand that we do need to be looking at the fact that we are quite vulnerable to the cuts that may well be coming in the federal budget next week in respect of public sector employment. We do need to be looking at how we can expand private sector employment through the establishment and the building up of businesses, particularly around those green sorts of industries.
Finally, the capital development paper seems to lack some community consultation and engagement. There may have been some roundtables that, I guess, provided some information to its development but we need to really understand what the broader community think about this new paper that provides the framework and the way forward. We would want to understand their desires for the economic base. Have those desires changed in recent months, particularly with the global financial crisis?
National surveys consistently point to a popular desire for a more cautious and resilient approach to economic management, maximising the value of the public sector and not leaving the private sector unregulated or, at least, unmonitored. So there are those points about regulation, there are those points about monitoring but there also are some points around how we can take the opportunities that are going to present themselves in order to grow those green businesses, green services and green collar jobs to be able to look at ways that the ACT can use the brains trust that is out
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