Page 3037 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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I even heard today that there are a number of business-in-focus grants, I believe they are called, that are available. They are for a September project. Yet the documentation that is required to obtain one of these $3,000 grants is something in the vicinity of 30-odd pages; 30-odd pages of forms have to be filled out to actually support this focus grant of $3,000. You give a business a $3,000 grant and then say that 20 business hours actually have to be consumed in red tape. It seems a bit over the top to me. I turn to recommendation 19 of the report:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government instigate a comprehensive approach to the incurring and management of debt in the ACT to facilitate the development of significant community infrastructure.
It concerns me that that is not already in place. It is a real concern that basic recommendations like that have to be made in the estimates report as opposed to being presented by the Treasurer in that committee. It is a real concern. It is a real concern in these troubled times that we have a Treasurer that does not have such basic reports like that, such basic plans like that in place to actually give the ACT and give businesses in the ACT some confidence.
I turn to recommendation 18 on page 23 of the report:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government immediately commence the development of a policy framework that will provide encouragement for the growth of the private sector in the ACT.
Here we are in 2009, eight years after they came to power, and the estimates committee has to deliver a recommendation like that. I wonder what the estimates committee would have delivered last term had there actually been a bit more scrutiny in that estimates committee by way of actually the Labor Party not having a majority on it. I think we might have found that recommendation 18 might have actually been in place in 2004-05 and in 2005-06 as well.
It is a real concern that we have to recommend to this government that the growth of the private sector in the ACT is actually something for the betterment of our community. As I said earlier, if the government were actually interested in promoting the private sector, surely they would be approaching things like payroll tax. Surely they would be going to things that restrict business growth and lifting those burdens so as to present an opportunity for businesses to actually grow in this time that otherwise is so difficult for them to do.
Recommendation 20 talks about the ACT government demonstration—
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
Sitting suspended from 6 to 7.30 pm.
MR COE: I must admit that I have not delivered a 10-minute speech in an hour and 40 minutes before, so it will be a new experience for me in my short time in this place.
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