Mr KIELY - 2005-05-03
You highlighted local jobs as a critical element of Budget 2005. Can you advise the House how you intend to achieve this aim?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sanderson for his question. There is no doubt local jobs will be generated by another record infrastructure spend this year, which will stand at $476m. If you add up …
Mr Dunham: Are you going to spend it?
Mr STIRLING: Are we going to spend it? Are we going to spend it?
Mr Dunham: You rolled over $130m last year. It is all in the revote.
Mr STIRLING: These blokes used to come out with a capital works program and they did not even have enough cash against it to pay for the revote for the year before! He says it is all revote! You did not even have enough cash in your program to pay for what you did not achieve the year before, let alone the new works! 50% or 51% stands in stark contrast, 65% cash against our capital works program, this year $476m. Last year, at the time of the budget, we committed $441m and we will probably come out of 2004-05 with $479m. We are going forward this year with $476m, and you would expect that there would be some increase with urgent jobs or jobs brought forward throughout 2005-06 which will increase that year.
Let us go back to 2001. Since the Martin government was elected, if you add up the various capital works programs for 2001-02, 2002-03, 2004-05, and 2005-06, $2.23bn cash into infrastructure spending, sustaining thousands of local jobs and thousands of contractors.
We have also taken minor new works up 40%; $20m last year, $28.6m this year. These works are particularly important, not just for government, which has to get a whole range of minor new works, and repairs and maintenance done throughout its assets, but they provide real bread and butter for the smaller contractors who may not be directly involved in the more major projects. For the carpenters, electricians, plumbers and smaller contractors, that is ongoing work for them in a real sense.
We have also boosted repairs and maintenance, and we have committed to escalating that budget to meet growing, so that provides real jobs for smaller businesses. These are the blokes who were sitting down there having coffee for about 12 months before we came to government in 2001. Kon used to go down and have a coffee with them because that is all they were doing; they were not driving cement mixers. Many of these repairs and maintenance contracts are period contracts which guarantee work over two or more years so they give certainty and ongoing work to these contractors. Local jobs will be secured also by the spread of the items across the infrastructure budget because it is a budget that provides work across the Territory.
I am proud of the fact that we cash our infrastructure programs very heavily and we do get things done reasonably quickly. Of course, there is always revote, unavoidably, but it is relatively minor compared with the overall program.
As I have said before, we inherited a capital works budget where the cash to run the budget was less than the cash required to pick up the revote from the previous year. We also inherited a program where the majority of the money was going into two large projects, and those very important smaller subcontractors, who sustain our economy and the construction industry, were simply being starved out. It is unbelievable that the Leader of the Opposition makes comments about infrastructure spending because he had the chance, as a minister in the CLP government, and he had two-and-a-half years as Chief Minister to turn this around, and it spiralled ever downwards under his leadership.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sanderson for his question. There is no doubt local jobs will be generated by another record infrastructure spend this year, which will stand at $476m. If you add up …
Mr Dunham: Are you going to spend it?
Mr STIRLING: Are we going to spend it? Are we going to spend it?
Mr Dunham: You rolled over $130m last year. It is all in the revote.
Mr STIRLING: These blokes used to come out with a capital works program and they did not even have enough cash against it to pay for the revote for the year before! He says it is all revote! You did not even have enough cash in your program to pay for what you did not achieve the year before, let alone the new works! 50% or 51% stands in stark contrast, 65% cash against our capital works program, this year $476m. Last year, at the time of the budget, we committed $441m and we will probably come out of 2004-05 with $479m. We are going forward this year with $476m, and you would expect that there would be some increase with urgent jobs or jobs brought forward throughout 2005-06 which will increase that year.
Let us go back to 2001. Since the Martin government was elected, if you add up the various capital works programs for 2001-02, 2002-03, 2004-05, and 2005-06, $2.23bn cash into infrastructure spending, sustaining thousands of local jobs and thousands of contractors.
We have also taken minor new works up 40%; $20m last year, $28.6m this year. These works are particularly important, not just for government, which has to get a whole range of minor new works, and repairs and maintenance done throughout its assets, but they provide real bread and butter for the smaller contractors who may not be directly involved in the more major projects. For the carpenters, electricians, plumbers and smaller contractors, that is ongoing work for them in a real sense.
We have also boosted repairs and maintenance, and we have committed to escalating that budget to meet growing, so that provides real jobs for smaller businesses. These are the blokes who were sitting down there having coffee for about 12 months before we came to government in 2001. Kon used to go down and have a coffee with them because that is all they were doing; they were not driving cement mixers. Many of these repairs and maintenance contracts are period contracts which guarantee work over two or more years so they give certainty and ongoing work to these contractors. Local jobs will be secured also by the spread of the items across the infrastructure budget because it is a budget that provides work across the Territory.
I am proud of the fact that we cash our infrastructure programs very heavily and we do get things done reasonably quickly. Of course, there is always revote, unavoidably, but it is relatively minor compared with the overall program.
As I have said before, we inherited a capital works budget where the cash to run the budget was less than the cash required to pick up the revote from the previous year. We also inherited a program where the majority of the money was going into two large projects, and those very important smaller subcontractors, who sustain our economy and the construction industry, were simply being starved out. It is unbelievable that the Leader of the Opposition makes comments about infrastructure spending because he had the chance, as a minister in the CLP government, and he had two-and-a-half years as Chief Minister to turn this around, and it spiralled ever downwards under his leadership.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016