Page 2767 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
industry and 13,000 Canberrans are now asking the Canberra Liberals and their shadow minister, “Where is your support for the tourism industry?” You can show that support this week. You can throw off that tired doctrine of opposition for opposition’s sake. I, and everyone involved in the tourism sector, hope that all members in this place will vote in favour of these tourism investments and by doing so will show their support of the territory’s tourism industry.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.25): It is worth responding to a couple of the things that have been said in the debate before I get on to some of the other aspects of the Chief Minister’s portfolio. I think it is becoming a bit laughable now when Minister Barr says “opposition for opposition’s sake” given how badly he was embarrassed last week when he used that term and had to come into this place and do a major backflip. In fact, we were putting forward something positive. In the end, the minister had to acknowledge and agree to it. So I think his sloganeering will be seen in that light in future.
Mr Rattenbury had something to say about the centenary of Canberra and the federal government’s investment in Canberra. It is worth putting on the record that we do hear a lot of criticism particularly of the Liberal Party by those on the left in relation to their contribution to Canberra. But if you look at the last few decades in particular and at some of the major institutions that have been delivered by Liberal governments at a federal level, the record is a very strong one.
Just in the last Howard government, we saw finally the National Museum of Australia, which had been promised for so long and never delivered in 13 years of Labor government before that. We saw the National Portrait Gallery delivered. We saw the expansion and the major renovations in relation to the Australian War Memorial. We also saw things that are not national institutions but are major constructions for Canberra. I refer to things like the ASIO building which is now going up. Indeed, they promised and they budgeted for the duplication of Constitution Avenue, which has not been honoured by the Labor government.
I go back to things like Parliament House, which was started by Malcolm Fraser. I go back even further to Menzies. He really did in many ways build Canberra from a very small town and turned it into a true national capital. So I think it is worth getting those on the record, given that we do hear arguments without any backing to the contrary so often from those on the left. If you compare that record to that of the Hawke-Keating government, I think it stacks up very well.
I think one of the key things in the Chief Minister’s portfolio that is worth spending a little time on is infrastructure. We know that the government’s infrastructure plan has been widely condemned, with good reason. It has been widely condemned because it does not actually do what is needed. The work simply has not been done by this government in relation to the development of a comprehensive infrastructure plan on the back of a process of consultation with industry. What we need is a genuine infrastructure plan that does look forward and actually provides a vision for infrastructure into the future.
We had a debate in this place not long ago about all of the ways in which the government’s infrastructure plan simply does not do that. It does not. It skates over
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video