Page 3069 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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to try and fix the CBD. That is really disappointing, because there were some really good, innovative ideas presented. Some of them echoed what the Liberal Party had been saying. In fact, a renowned architect’s principal idea of what we need to do echoed some of the ideas that Mr Coe has put forward about bringing traffic back into the CBD.
The failure of the LVC is profound in the town centres and the CBD. As Mr Smyth says, it is the mining tax. Not only has it failed to provide the revenue; it has also deterred business from taking the risk, from making the investment, to build in our town centres and in our CBD. It is actually a tax that fails on two fronts. Firstly, it does not provide the revenue that it should and, secondly, it is stopping economic activity. It is stopping the building in our city.
This is where we on this side understand economics and those on the other side do not. Their view and Mr Barr’s view—from his mentor, Ted Quinlan—is: tax them till they bleed but not until they die. Our view is: let’s make sure that we actually get business out there working, building and creating the jobs. Not only is that economic activity good for our urban space and densification of the CBD and the town centres, which is improving our built environment, but also it will create more revenue coming into the coffers through the economic activity, the jobs, the payroll tax, the stamp duty, the rates and the other activity that would come from increased retail and hospitality in the CBD and town centres. This mob opposite do not understand it. They are entrenched. How do you—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, resume your seat. Stop the clock, please. I have asked you before to not refer to the government as a “mob”. Refer to them as the government, or “those opposite” if you like.
MR HANSON: Those opposite, Madam Deputy Speaker, are entrenched in the class warfare that originates from the CFMEU. You could hear it in the rhetoric. It is really disturbing, the sort of “You and your developer mates”. The point is that these people, as I said yesterday, are the people that take the risk. They are the people that actually employ the CFMEU members, ironically. So although you hate them—although Mr Barr, Mr Gentleman and Mr Rattenbury hate these developers, it seems—they are actually the people taking the risk. They are the people that employ your CFMEU mates. The irony is just flabbergasting. We want densification, we want renewal and we want to see life come back into our CBD and our town centres. It is clear, Madam Deputy Speaker—and it is not just me saying it; there were 300 people in that forum—that it is not working.
The policies under the current Labor-Greens coalition are failing. Go walk around Garema Place; go down there in the evenings. Go down to Tuggeranong. Go up to Belconnen. Go to Woden and have a look. The policies are failing. It has been 14 years of Labor government that has led to a point where the planning regime and the tax regime have got the community getting together without government and saying, “We need to fix this.”
The Liberals have come up with an idea, and it is not a silver bullet. There is much more that needs to be done. There is much more that we will announce before the election, but it is a good step and it has been applauded broadly across the community,
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