Ms LAWRIE - 2014-02-19
A call yesterday afternoon to businesses in Alice Springs has confirmed what you have been refusing to admit. The economy has flat lined and because of your power price increases people are hurting. Businesses have reported what was once a weekly purchase is now a fortnightly or monthly special treat. There is a real feeling of uncertainty and the only activity people can point to is the 33 houses being released, off the plan, in the Labor suburb of Kilgariff. Will you now admit you got it wrong on managing the economy – government is important to regional economies – and will you explain to businesses in Alice Springs your plans to get them out of the flat line you have put them into?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, there is no doubt there is a change in the economy in Central Australia. I will give you my understanding of how the economy in Central Australia works in many regional parts of the Northern Territory.
It would be very easy to complain about the devastating effects of disadvantage, alcoholism, welfareism and despair in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. It would be very easy to outlay poor school attendance, chronic domestic violence and all those issues we see in many Aboriginal communities in the Territory. They have occurred for many a long year and many a generation in the Territory.
It is interesting when you reflect on the economy since 2006 in the Territory and see the money which came in through the intervention, designed to fix many things. I am not attacking the intervention; I am talking about it as a measure. Many of the things resulting from it were about building infrastructure - schools, preschools and so forth. You then look at adding on top of it the BER stimulus package Kevin Rudd introduced, and you look at the money which flowed into the Northern Territory. A lot of money flowed into the Territory from federal coffers, mostly through the Territory government. It helped stimulate the size of the infrastructure spend in the Northern Territory and went out to many construction companies in the Territory.
We came in and now have a $5.5bn debt legacy from Labor, which we are trying to repay. We know the federal government is around $500bn in debt. It does not have money to throw around, and we are determined, in government and in Cabinet, that we will not parade around poverty and misery for Aboriginal people to try to get money from Canberra to support our economy.
What we are doing - and we saw yesterday the promotion, announcement and launching of our pitch for taking the lead role in northern Australia - is allowing ourselves to start growing the economy, not running it as a welfare-based economy. Yes, we get a lot of our income from the federal government. Much of it is designed to assist Indigenous Territorians, but the best assistance we can give is to move away from the cycle of welfareism. Much of it is economic welfareism which supports business and moving to the real economy. This is why we want to build roads, see water licences issued, see changes in the Pastoral Act and see these economic drivers being developed so we can create jobs and have a different economy from the generations of the past.
Generations of the past lived off a welfare economy. It does not matter if you are individuals, what we do when you talk about the Alice Springs and other regional economies - we will not go into debt. We will not lambast Aboriginal Territorians to try to get money for people to get jobs. We want real jobs in real economies. It is what northern Australia is about and is what we will continue to do on this side of the Chamber in our term of government to build a proper economy in all areas of the Territory.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, there is no doubt there is a change in the economy in Central Australia. I will give you my understanding of how the economy in Central Australia works in many regional parts of the Northern Territory.
It would be very easy to complain about the devastating effects of disadvantage, alcoholism, welfareism and despair in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. It would be very easy to outlay poor school attendance, chronic domestic violence and all those issues we see in many Aboriginal communities in the Territory. They have occurred for many a long year and many a generation in the Territory.
It is interesting when you reflect on the economy since 2006 in the Territory and see the money which came in through the intervention, designed to fix many things. I am not attacking the intervention; I am talking about it as a measure. Many of the things resulting from it were about building infrastructure - schools, preschools and so forth. You then look at adding on top of it the BER stimulus package Kevin Rudd introduced, and you look at the money which flowed into the Northern Territory. A lot of money flowed into the Territory from federal coffers, mostly through the Territory government. It helped stimulate the size of the infrastructure spend in the Northern Territory and went out to many construction companies in the Territory.
We came in and now have a $5.5bn debt legacy from Labor, which we are trying to repay. We know the federal government is around $500bn in debt. It does not have money to throw around, and we are determined, in government and in Cabinet, that we will not parade around poverty and misery for Aboriginal people to try to get money from Canberra to support our economy.
What we are doing - and we saw yesterday the promotion, announcement and launching of our pitch for taking the lead role in northern Australia - is allowing ourselves to start growing the economy, not running it as a welfare-based economy. Yes, we get a lot of our income from the federal government. Much of it is designed to assist Indigenous Territorians, but the best assistance we can give is to move away from the cycle of welfareism. Much of it is economic welfareism which supports business and moving to the real economy. This is why we want to build roads, see water licences issued, see changes in the Pastoral Act and see these economic drivers being developed so we can create jobs and have a different economy from the generations of the past.
Generations of the past lived off a welfare economy. It does not matter if you are individuals, what we do when you talk about the Alice Springs and other regional economies - we will not go into debt. We will not lambast Aboriginal Territorians to try to get money for people to get jobs. We want real jobs in real economies. It is what northern Australia is about and is what we will continue to do on this side of the Chamber in our term of government to build a proper economy in all areas of the Territory.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016