Page 1792 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Picking up on some of the things Mr Rattenbury said, it is about what it feels like, it is about young professionals that are willing to go places, it is the work of the Charles Landrys and the Richard Floridas, it is about the creative class and it is about new industries for the ACT, for instance jewellery. The School of Art here produces a large number of, and some of the best, gold and silversmiths in this country. Within six months of their graduating, most of them do not live here.
I have mentioned FIVEFOLD before. Four graduates and a lady from California, five young females, have set up their own jewellery shop in the ACT, in Braddon. I said to them, “Most people would say you are foolish. Your colleagues have all moved away.” They said, “But we like Canberra. We want to stay here and we want to make it special.” And that is what we have got to be encouraging. So it is in small industries like jewellery.
Mr Rattenbury said that the Greens have always been keen about sustainability industries. They talk about it. They have had a number of opportunities, and they have fallen over. There were discussions before the 2008 election and after the 2008 election about who would support, for instance, Spark Solar, who wanted to set up a plant here to make solar cells. We said we would, the government said they would not, and the Greens supported the government. As a consequence, we do not have a solar cell manufacturing plant in the ACT, which would have produced some semi-skilled and blue collar jobs. That has gone begging. Spark Solar still continues and looks for opportunities, but it did not get any help from this government and it did not get any help from the Greens.
NOWaste by 2010 is a strategy that the Greens let down, and they let the government get away with walking away from that strategy. Part of that strategy was to do with, when you got to the hard end of the waste stream, the things that were difficult to get rid of. By the time we got to 2010, having started in about 1996, we would have had companies that were working on solutions to track those problems. You take the pressure off by not having the target, and it does not happen. And that is the case. So that is what it can also look like, Minister Rattenbury, when opportunities are squandered or simply walked away from.
It is about diversifying the economic base. The Centre for International Economics says in a report that due to the impact on this sector and on other sectors and due to the lack of diversification in the ACT economy, this may also affect private sector hiring intentions. Those outside us, looking at us, think we are not diverse. We need to work on that, and we need to improve their understanding of who we are.
Back in 2002 I put out a press release that we should have a film industry. Give the government some due, they have had some assistance there and it was great to sit down at the preview of The Code the other night and watch the first two episodes, filmed predominantly in Canberra. It was fantastic. It is a great industry for us.
I have said over the years we should have something like a fashion industry, and was it not great to see something like FASHFEST, a private sector initiative, highlight what is good about the fashion industry in the ACT? I have gone to FASHFEST both
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video