Ms FINOCCHIARO - 2013-03-27
Can you please advise the House of some of the benefits and positive impacts on business given the government’s decision to underwrite and continue the container deposit scheme?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for her question. I know business and jobs are very important to the member for Drysdale, and it is an important question she asks.
We are about providing certainty to those businesses that have set up in the Northern Territory due to Labor’s failed container deposit legislation.
We can see the social and environmental benefits, but we clearly also see the economic benefits. Businesses have set up and people have jobs. I am advised there are almost 100 people working in the CDL industry permanently. That is a great outcome.
For those business people who put their money on the line, put their hard earned savings on the line, put blood, sweat and tears into getting these businesses up and going, it has all been placed in jeopardy because of what we said at the time: that Labor did not get the legislation right.
We know they did not get the legislation right. Labor members were acting for their own political survival. They had no interest in container deposit legislation. The only reason they put this legislation in place was because of the deal they did with the member for Nelson who insisted on it. They did not care about the legislation; it was just a box they had to tick.
All that investment, blood, sweat and tears has been put in jeopardy as a result of this court case that found against the Northern Territory - the previous Labor government’s legislation. As my friend and colleague, the Minister for Central Australia said, it is now left to us to pick up the pieces and try to fix Labor’s mess.
This is another legacy item the member for Karama has left us, along with the many hundreds of others: $600m in unfunded legacy items she has bequeathed to this new government. It is another area where we have to pick up the pieces.
I put on the record how disgusted I am at the previous government and its appalling treatment of Territorians and Territory businesses. We are left having to spend an enormous amount of money picking up the pieces of their failure on something that should have been a good plan, that should have been providing benefits to the environment, to the social community, all of those types of things ...
Ms Lawrie: How much? You do not even know how much.
Mr TOLLNER: Too much! Absolutely too much.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for her question. I know business and jobs are very important to the member for Drysdale, and it is an important question she asks.
We are about providing certainty to those businesses that have set up in the Northern Territory due to Labor’s failed container deposit legislation.
We can see the social and environmental benefits, but we clearly also see the economic benefits. Businesses have set up and people have jobs. I am advised there are almost 100 people working in the CDL industry permanently. That is a great outcome.
For those business people who put their money on the line, put their hard earned savings on the line, put blood, sweat and tears into getting these businesses up and going, it has all been placed in jeopardy because of what we said at the time: that Labor did not get the legislation right.
We know they did not get the legislation right. Labor members were acting for their own political survival. They had no interest in container deposit legislation. The only reason they put this legislation in place was because of the deal they did with the member for Nelson who insisted on it. They did not care about the legislation; it was just a box they had to tick.
All that investment, blood, sweat and tears has been put in jeopardy as a result of this court case that found against the Northern Territory - the previous Labor government’s legislation. As my friend and colleague, the Minister for Central Australia said, it is now left to us to pick up the pieces and try to fix Labor’s mess.
This is another legacy item the member for Karama has left us, along with the many hundreds of others: $600m in unfunded legacy items she has bequeathed to this new government. It is another area where we have to pick up the pieces.
I put on the record how disgusted I am at the previous government and its appalling treatment of Territorians and Territory businesses. We are left having to spend an enormous amount of money picking up the pieces of their failure on something that should have been a good plan, that should have been providing benefits to the environment, to the social community, all of those types of things ...
Ms Lawrie: How much? You do not even know how much.
Mr TOLLNER: Too much! Absolutely too much.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016