Page 2410 - Week 08 - Thursday, 6 June 2013
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In response to the government’s malaise, today I call for the funding to the Auditor-General to be increased so that the number of performance audits she conducts is doubled by the next election in 2016. Let us make the first of those new audits on ACTEW, which the government still refuses to do but is so obviously required.
Today I call on the government to make the Public Service Commissioner an independent statutory authority so that he or she can more effectively investigate issues of nepotism, bullying, and improper behaviour within this government.
Today I call on the government to establish a central authority within the Chief Minister’s directorate to conduct proper regulatory impact statements on all legislation and release those impact statements to the public so that the community is provided with an honest view of the full effects of this government's plans.
And today we commit to these initiatives. If the government will not do this of their own accord, I will bring them forward in legislation in this place.
Madam Speaker, we will always be the party that focuses on delivering local services. We are not the party engaged in some race to the left with the Greens, each outdoing the other with grander and more out-of-touch schemes designed solely to placate an ideological extreme instead of delivering core services to the community. We would do it differently. We would maintain SmartStart for kids to address the obesity crisis we are facing and help our children who are struggling with their health. We would establish a proper preventative health task force immediately. We would halve the fees for local sporting clubs to use their local sports grounds and keep kids active. We would deliver an autism school to support parents and children who are crying out for the early intervention that can transform their lives.
We would appoint a fifth Supreme Court judge right now to make our justice system fairer. We would reduce the impact of the lease variation charge that is a tax on growth and development, an impediment to employment and a hindrance to density. We call on Andrew Barr to honour his broken commitment on commence and complete fees, fees that for many landowners have doubled as commercial rates have doubled. That is what we would do.
Sometimes, though, what defines you is not just what you do, but what you would not do. We would not commit to building a light rail without a cap on expenditure. We would not say there is no price we will not pay, as Andrew Barr did. We would not impose a massively disproportionate response to climate change that is costing us millions and millions of dollars. We would not treat the business sector as something to be squeezed until it bleeds but not until it dies. And we would never, ever think of the family home as a tax haven that is simply to be plundered by government. Lastly, we would not talk this town down. Since this time last year we have heard nothing from this government but dire predictions of disaster—constant, incessant talk of how a change of government will kill this town, while at the same time blowing the budget, racking up debt and cutting jobs and services. That has actually caused this slowdown that we see right now.
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