Page 2125 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.30): Your first speech as the Chief Minister, your first speech in a ministerial statement, should be an opportunity to inspire the community about what you hold dear to yourself and what it is you would like to achieve in your time as the leader of the ACT. If you look at the document that we have just had tabled in front of us, you will see nothing that you could really say we would hold dear, nothing that would inspire, simply because most of it is already underway.
I only need to look at “a robust local economy and a balanced tax system”. In her speech, the Chief Minister says:
This government is committed not only to setting clear and meaningful priorities, but also to delivering on these priorities and reporting back to the people of Canberra on our progress.
Let us look at some of the clear and meaningful priorities that the Chief Minister has under “a robust local economy and a balanced tax system”. One of the priorities, Madam Assistant Speaker, I am sure you will be pleased to know, is that the ACT government is going to be a full participant in a modernised federal tax system developed through the 2011 tax summit. So we are going to go to the tax summit and we are actually going to turn up. The measure of achievement against this new zeal for tax reform is participation in the federal 2011 tax summit. We are going to a summit. That is the measure of the level of the inspiration and the zeal of this Chief Minister. We are actually going to go to a summit.
If you look at the other initiatives in “a robust local economy and a balanced tax system”, it is quite interesting. We are going to complete the ACT tax review. That has already started. That is not a new direction; that is just the same old course. That is just business as usual.
And what is the measure against “complete the ACT tax review”? We are going to commence staged ACT tax reform. Either the Chief Minister knows what is in the report already so that she thinks she can stage it in or it is that poor, that weak, that it will take staging for it to occur.
And I go to another one: the clean economy strategy incorporating input from the 2010 discussion paper—2010, 2011, 2012. The measure of achievement against the clean economy strategy is that in April 2012 they are going to release the clean economy strategy. Two years to take a discussion paper and turn it into a strategy! You have to ask what opportunities will have gone begging in those two years. Indeed, how relevant will the discussion paper be in 2012?
One of my particular favourites here is “support growth in the tourism industry through the facilitation of low-cost tourist accommodation”. How will we measure that? We are going to release sites for low-cost tourism accommodation. A number of those sites have already been released. Wow! That is outstanding! We are going to tell you that we have already done something.
This is what is wrong with the vision of this Chief Minister. You can sigh all you want, Chief Minister. That is what is wrong with this document. You are looking for
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