Mr STIRLING - 2000-03-01
Since 1990-1991, the Territory has had real economic growth of 28.4%. The Treasurer likes to boast about this economic growth rate that he claims the Country Liberal Party has achieved. Australia, over the same time period, has grown by 34.5%. Over the longer term, average incomes in the Territory have slipped from the second highest to the middle of the pack. Territory employment growth has been dismal. Doesn’t this data highlight once and for all the Country Liberal Party’s economic management rhetoric as being a myth when it fails to translate into jobs, higher incomes and increased well-being for all Territorians?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker ...
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr REED: I don’t think any one would be too disappointed if you went outside.
Mr Speaker, interestingly, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition doesn’t indicate the source of the statistics he quoted from. Of course, he would not do that because they have priors for either misrepresenting the figures or interpreting them in a way that is favourable to the opposition. Can I just say this: you don’t have to do anything other than go and talk to business. You have just demonstrated that you don’t do that. You don’t have to go and do anything other than talk to business to get an indication as to the confidence level of business across the Northern Territory. What their plans are in respect to investment. How they see the economy being buoyant and wanting to be part of it. And a whole range of activities that they will be able to participate in, commencing this year with the biggest project that will ever be undertaken in the Northern Territory, over $100m of railway construction, which will benefit not only Darwin, but Alice Springs, Tennant Creek ...
Mr Toyne: Where are the jobs going to come from?
Mr REED: Where are the jobs going to come from? That is patently obvious to everybody else, but not to you, and I can understand that. Thank heavens you got out of the classroom because the way you would have been teaching kids would have been very misleading and they would never have a prospect for a job with you as a teacher in their class.
Mrs HICKEY: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The Treasurer is straight again into his old habit of speaking directly to members rather than through the Chair.
Mr SPEAKER: I would not rule as a point of order, for this reason, and it is the same reason the Treasurer raised during his answer to his last question. There is far too much interjection from the opposition and the temptation to respond is too great. I would ask the Treasurer to direct his remarks through the Chair.
Mr REED: I ask the Leader of the Opposition, through you, what is it that she does not like about 3% employment growth in the Northern Territory? Because it was 3% employment growth that we experienced throughout 1999. You consider that to be a failure? Rather, I would have thought that to be a laudable outcome - a 3% employment growth. They are not my figures. They come from the ABS, which is very important to note.
Saul Eastlake, the ANZ Bank’s chief economist, recently stated that the Northern Territory is positively booming. How come Saul Eastlake from afar, saw the glow on the horizon of this booming economy? He can see it from Sydney or Melbourne and appreciate the fact that if you want to be in business and you want to get a job, get up to Darwin, get up to Alice Springs, get up to Katherine. This lady sitting on the doorstep is oblivious to all this action. She is oblivious to the fact that over the last 12 months, there has been 3% growth in employment. That is something you should be proud of. You should be out there singing it from the rooftops because, even as a prospective government in your own eyes, your perception of gaining government should tell you that that would be a positive.
Does the Leader of the Opposition, as the shadow treasurer, never keep up with what the major pundits around the country are saying about the Northern Territory economy? Does she not understand that we are recognised elsewhere? I quote from the Australian Financial Review of Monday 31 January - and this is why business has confidence. The leader says: ‘Territory set for 5-year growth spurt’. Continuing on from the one that we’ve been in for the last decade:
The Northern Territory is set to lead the country in economic growth over the next 5 years, expanding by 50%, according to a new study by BIS Shrapnel.
What is it you do not like about success? Is it because you are such an irrelevance? Is it because you don’t have the capacity to understand what you should be understanding as a shadow treasurer.
In this House yesterday, I made a statement about new taxation arrangements to be put in place by the Territory government as a result of the Commonwealth government’s new tax arrangements. The Leader of the Opposition spoke for 15 minutes in that debate, and she didn’t once focus on the subject. She spoke about ‘this will increase in price, that will increase in price’. That had nothing to do with it. It had all to do with the mechanism to assist business and to ensure that government as a major supplier of services and a major purchaser of goods and services had a mechanism in place that would assist business. She did not understand it, and because she didn’t understand it, couldn’t contribute to the debate.
She cannot respond to Access Economics, BIS Shrapnel, or Saul Eastlake. Everyone is saying that the economy is doing very well, that the prospects are good, that if you want a job you should come to the Northern Territory, and those things, I must say in closing, don’t come by accident. They come by damn hard work, and they come by the government over a successive period of years, with very good budgets, that encourage not only confidence but have programs and projects in terms of capital works that will ensure that the economy has plenty of opportunities to not only create jobs, but to provide the infrastructure that we have to create.
If there’s no one coming here to work, why every year for the last decade have we had to build more schools? We’ve had to build more schools because there’s been more kids because there have been more parents working. Why have we had to expand the hospital services every year for the past decade or more? Because there are more people. Can’t you understand that when you’ve got nearly 3% population growth, that the people are coming here from interstate, the highest population growth in the country, to do what? They come here to get a job, because you can’t buy a new unit, you can’t buy a new house until you have a job to pay for it. If you can’t understand it, we feel sorry for you, we’ll send a sympathy card at the appropriate time, but don’t try and draw the Territory down to your pathetic levels of performance because Territorians are worth more than that.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker ...
Mr Toyne interjecting.
Mr REED: I don’t think any one would be too disappointed if you went outside.
Mr Speaker, interestingly, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition doesn’t indicate the source of the statistics he quoted from. Of course, he would not do that because they have priors for either misrepresenting the figures or interpreting them in a way that is favourable to the opposition. Can I just say this: you don’t have to do anything other than go and talk to business. You have just demonstrated that you don’t do that. You don’t have to go and do anything other than talk to business to get an indication as to the confidence level of business across the Northern Territory. What their plans are in respect to investment. How they see the economy being buoyant and wanting to be part of it. And a whole range of activities that they will be able to participate in, commencing this year with the biggest project that will ever be undertaken in the Northern Territory, over $100m of railway construction, which will benefit not only Darwin, but Alice Springs, Tennant Creek ...
Mr Toyne: Where are the jobs going to come from?
Mr REED: Where are the jobs going to come from? That is patently obvious to everybody else, but not to you, and I can understand that. Thank heavens you got out of the classroom because the way you would have been teaching kids would have been very misleading and they would never have a prospect for a job with you as a teacher in their class.
Mrs HICKEY: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The Treasurer is straight again into his old habit of speaking directly to members rather than through the Chair.
Mr SPEAKER: I would not rule as a point of order, for this reason, and it is the same reason the Treasurer raised during his answer to his last question. There is far too much interjection from the opposition and the temptation to respond is too great. I would ask the Treasurer to direct his remarks through the Chair.
Mr REED: I ask the Leader of the Opposition, through you, what is it that she does not like about 3% employment growth in the Northern Territory? Because it was 3% employment growth that we experienced throughout 1999. You consider that to be a failure? Rather, I would have thought that to be a laudable outcome - a 3% employment growth. They are not my figures. They come from the ABS, which is very important to note.
Saul Eastlake, the ANZ Bank’s chief economist, recently stated that the Northern Territory is positively booming. How come Saul Eastlake from afar, saw the glow on the horizon of this booming economy? He can see it from Sydney or Melbourne and appreciate the fact that if you want to be in business and you want to get a job, get up to Darwin, get up to Alice Springs, get up to Katherine. This lady sitting on the doorstep is oblivious to all this action. She is oblivious to the fact that over the last 12 months, there has been 3% growth in employment. That is something you should be proud of. You should be out there singing it from the rooftops because, even as a prospective government in your own eyes, your perception of gaining government should tell you that that would be a positive.
Does the Leader of the Opposition, as the shadow treasurer, never keep up with what the major pundits around the country are saying about the Northern Territory economy? Does she not understand that we are recognised elsewhere? I quote from the Australian Financial Review of Monday 31 January - and this is why business has confidence. The leader says: ‘Territory set for 5-year growth spurt’. Continuing on from the one that we’ve been in for the last decade:
The Northern Territory is set to lead the country in economic growth over the next 5 years, expanding by 50%, according to a new study by BIS Shrapnel.
What is it you do not like about success? Is it because you are such an irrelevance? Is it because you don’t have the capacity to understand what you should be understanding as a shadow treasurer.
In this House yesterday, I made a statement about new taxation arrangements to be put in place by the Territory government as a result of the Commonwealth government’s new tax arrangements. The Leader of the Opposition spoke for 15 minutes in that debate, and she didn’t once focus on the subject. She spoke about ‘this will increase in price, that will increase in price’. That had nothing to do with it. It had all to do with the mechanism to assist business and to ensure that government as a major supplier of services and a major purchaser of goods and services had a mechanism in place that would assist business. She did not understand it, and because she didn’t understand it, couldn’t contribute to the debate.
She cannot respond to Access Economics, BIS Shrapnel, or Saul Eastlake. Everyone is saying that the economy is doing very well, that the prospects are good, that if you want a job you should come to the Northern Territory, and those things, I must say in closing, don’t come by accident. They come by damn hard work, and they come by the government over a successive period of years, with very good budgets, that encourage not only confidence but have programs and projects in terms of capital works that will ensure that the economy has plenty of opportunities to not only create jobs, but to provide the infrastructure that we have to create.
If there’s no one coming here to work, why every year for the last decade have we had to build more schools? We’ve had to build more schools because there’s been more kids because there have been more parents working. Why have we had to expand the hospital services every year for the past decade or more? Because there are more people. Can’t you understand that when you’ve got nearly 3% population growth, that the people are coming here from interstate, the highest population growth in the country, to do what? They come here to get a job, because you can’t buy a new unit, you can’t buy a new house until you have a job to pay for it. If you can’t understand it, we feel sorry for you, we’ll send a sympathy card at the appropriate time, but don’t try and draw the Territory down to your pathetic levels of performance because Territorians are worth more than that.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016