Page 1408 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Of course, all of that drove private sector investment. There was the enormous investment out at Canberra Airport and the building of new A-grade office space to house the public services. Issue after issue emerged which the Howard government was in a position to cope with because they had got the budget back into surplus.
Whether it was the SARS outbreak, whether it was the Asian meltdown, whether it was introducing a thing called the GST, whether it was border security, whether it was war in Iraq or war in Iran, those public servants were housed in property with a private sector boom brought on by the Howard government.
The record for the merry-go-round government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, was eventually, I think in 2010, giving us the money for the Constitution Avenue upgrade. They gave it to us as an election commitment, as a gift, when in fact it was actually payment for a car park that they got at Russell. It was long and it was late and a deal was not agreed. We got some money for the Arboretum because that was the then Chief Minister’s pet project. Ultimately, after being missed out in many rounds of funding, we got money for the Majura parkway. It is interesting, when you compare those two lists, that one is very short and the other built the transport, the cultural, the artistic and the business infrastructure of the ACT. It is a good record from the Howard Liberal government.
We have got the “transformational” word—capital metro, city to the lake and the city plan, none of which are funded or have completion dates, which is so typical of this government, and none of which in the end we really know a great deal about. The government have balked at every turn to tell us the cost of capital metro. They have talked about city to the lake for years, but we are yet to see anything delivered. We know that the Chief Minister let the cat out of the bag when she said the city plan “is not really a plan; it is a spatial guide to what might happen in Civic”. Yet again we see long time frames, but we do not see in the budget the drivers to make this happen, which is big surpluses to build up for the rainy days. The rainy days are here and the transformation I doubt will come, because this is a government that cannot deliver. (Time expired.)
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Community Services) (4.18): I thank Ms Porter for raising this MPI today. It is obviously a day of great anxiety, though, for many workers and families in Canberra. Tonight’s federal budget will hold major consequences for households across the city, for hardworking parents and for the kids who depend on them and for those who work in the private sector in Canberra too.
The ACT government, faced with this scenario, is looking at how best we can respond to protect jobs and support economic activity in Canberra in the face of significant cuts in employment and in expenditure from the biggest employer and the single biggest entity within the territory economy. Our government is making the conscious call to do what we can, particularly to maintain the level of momentum and confidence through supporting construction activity and, importantly, building the long-term productive infrastructure that our city needs.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video