Presentation to Millennium Forum Briefing, American Club, Macquarie Street, Sydney

Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for coming along this morning at this busy time. I appreciate your support and your interest. I don’t wish to delay you any longer than is necessary so I propose to get right to it.

2006 may be drawing to a close, but the Government’s taxpayer funded advertising blitz makes it clear that the final phase of the campaign for the State Election on March 24 has begun.

The Government’s pre-Christmas advertising blitz would make even Gerry Harvey blush. But there are some important differences. Unlike Labor’s ads, you can believe what Gerry has to say and you don’t have to pay for them.

The taxpayers of NSW have paid enough for this Government. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay out again as Labor tries to get themselves re-elected.

For the past year I have been talking about the failings of the Carr-Iemma Government. Some have said I have spent too much time on this topic. But I’ve got to say – it’s a big topic – and there’s a lot to say.

It is also true that to change a Government, an Opposition must first ensure a mood for change. Without such a mood, Opposition policy initiatives can fall on deaf ears.

That is why so much of our focus during the past year has been on holding this Government to account and demonstrating their inability to deliver. The feedback I receive out in the electorate is don’t let them get way with it, but stay focused on the issues.

I now believe the community feels that the Carr-Iemma Labor Government has served one term too many. They believe Labor has had twelve years to get our economy heading in the right direction, to begin the work of drought proofing NSW and to deliver the infrastructure NSW needs and that they are still waiting for Labor to deliver.

As we move towards this election, the Iemma-Costa Government have walked away from campaigning on their record, preferring to talk only about their plans and promises.

But the people of NSW understand that it is Labor’s record that determines their ability to deliver, and on this score they know that the Iemma-Costa Government comes up short.

As a result, there is recognition in the community that NSW cannot afford to give Labor another chance.

The community is therefore now rightly looking to the Coalition for solutions and we are ready to respond.

For the past year we have been preparing for this time, working behind the scenes to prepare our alternative vision for NSW, and more importantly how we plan to deliver it.

The result is a strong action plan to get NSW back in front – back where it belongs.

NSW used to be known as the Premier State – we can no longer make this claim.

Last Wednesday’s National Accounts summed it up.  Our economy is going backwards and the State is on the brink of a recession. Our jobless rate is one of the highest in the country and 24,000 NSW residents fled the state last year, following many businesses, for brighter economic prospects north of the border.

NSW used to open the batting for the national economy, we’re now struggling to even make the team.

Added to this our dam levels are at 37.5% of capacity and there are 258 calendar years of cumulative delays on 165 infrastructure projects across the state.

This is the state we’re in, yet Morris Iemma and Michael Costa remain in a state of denial.

Last week they blamed our ailing NSW economy on Peter Costello, even suggesting that politicians should set interest rates. That’s right, abandon inflation targets, abandon the independence of the Reserve Bank and get politicians to set interest rates!

That type of policy is not crazy brave – it’s just plain crazy.

Treasurer Peter Costello got it right when he said Mr Costa’s response should be ‘marked down as one of the great feats of economic ignorance’.

Labor’s response shows why Morris Iemma and Michael Costa can’t be trusted to bring our economy back from recession.

Our vision is to restore NSW as the Premier State. Our plan is to get NSW back in front.

Our plan comprises ten priority tasks  ….

ON SCREEN

1. Rescue and grow the NSW economy right across the state

2. Tackle our water crisis and begin drought proofing NSW 

3. Deliver the roads and infrastructure NSW has been waiting for 

4. Stop the rot and restore accountability to State Government in NSW  

5. Run a public transport system that commuters want to use

6. Get resources to our nurses on the front line in our hospitals 

7. Ensure the justice system protects our community first, not offenders

8. Re-empower and equip police to protect public safety 

9. Make public schools an attractive choice for all families

10. Take the lead on managing the impacts of climate change

… and focuses on the critical issues of  rescuing our economy, tackling our water crisis and delivering the roads and infrastructure our economy needs to grow.

These three issues are the ones I believe will set us apart from Labor as we go to this election.

We have already announced numerous policy initiatives as part of this plan. Today, I want to talk further about our policies in these areas and announce some new initiatives.

The one consistent message I get as I move around the state is that we need to spend taxpayers money where it needs to be spent.

This means making priorities. You simply cannot consistently spend more than you raise and expect to end up in front.

In February of this year the Government’s own auditors criticized the Iemma-Costa Government for its lack of budget discipline and a failure to set priorities. 

Highlighting the difference between growth in spending of 6% per year and growth in revenue of 5% per year for five straight years, the auditors said,

“The differences in these underlying growth rates ---- makes expenses grow by $400 million a year more than revenue.”

No wonder our budget is in deficit – despite record revenues – and is sliding deeper into the hole.

The Auditors pleaded with the Iemma-Costa Government for ‘priority setting’, and unlike Labor, who has no form on this issue, that’s exactly what I will do.

Over four years we will shift resources in the public sector from the back room to the front line, by applying a sinking lid policy to employment of back room bureaucrats in metropolitan Sydney. This measure will save more than $4.5 billion over four years.

Labor believes this can’t be achieved. But it can.

If you’re prepared to stand up to public sector unions and hold your public service heads to account, you can achieve these savings.

It’s quite simple – make the public service mangers do their job and ensure they operate within the policy to ensure front line services are preserved and unnecessary roles are abolished. This is how you do it in your business and the public sector should be no different.

We also need to undertake the long overdue task of restructuring government departments from 33 down to nine, to ensure a stronger chain of accountability and more effective service and infrastructure delivery 

Morris Iemma’s ‘softly softly’ approach and failure to bite the bullet on these issues is another reason why they can’t be relied on to make the other hard decisions necessary to keep our economy out of recession.

If the patient has a serious illness, you don’t prescribe a panadol. You book the patient in for some serious treatment. And that is what we need for our NSW economy.

That is why our economic rescue plan will:

• introduce a Housing and Home Buyer Rescue Package, including additional incentives and concessions for first homebuyers  and investors to get our housing sector moving again,

• implement a Small Business Package to reduce the burden of Business Regulation by 5%, and

• reduce Payroll Tax by increasing the threshold, exempting 4,500 businesses, and giving a tax cut to a further 22,000 businesses.

In addition I flag today that a Debnam led Coalition Government will reduce the burden of land tax for families and businesses in NSW.

We will announce further details of this policy once we have had the opportunity to review the Government’s half yearly projections due in the next few weeks.

A low tax regime will help grow and attract business to NSW. That is why the Liberal and National Parties in NSW stand for lower taxes. NSW pays more tax per person than in any other state. We are paying more and getting less. This will not continue under a Debnam led Coalition Government.

On water there are no easy solutions. We are faced with difficult choices and an increasingly desperate situation.

We need to simultaneously address the current crisis while beginning the task of drought proofing NSW.

That is why on day one, I will declare a State of Emergency to cut through bureaucratic red tape and treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

Today, I announce a Debnam led Coalition Government will also establish a Drought Proofing Infrastructure Fund, commencing with $1 billion, to begin drought proofing NSW, to:

• Harvest billions of litres of stormwater that flow out of sea after every rainfall;

• Recycle ocean outfalls including one in our first term and recycle this water for non-drinking purposes;

• Repair ageing infrastructure and clear the backlog of over 200 projects needed to fix country and coastal towns' water and sewerage schemes; and

• Enhance dam capacities.

And we will:

• Boost rainwater tank installation by doubling the rainwater tank rebate; and

• Encourage large scale recycling by ending Sydney Water's monopoly

Additional initiatives to be funded by the Drought Proofing Infrastructure fund will be announced between now and the election.

The Drought Proofing Fund will be financed in part by the sale of State Lotteries.

As part of the sale process we will protect the existing rights of punters, retailers and vendors through legislation and ensure, by law, that all proceeds will go straight to the Drought Proofing fund.

We will announce further details on this initiative in the new year prior to the election. In the meantime we will be listening carefully to the community and business about how best to proceed with the sale and ensure we put the necessary safeguards in place.

Additional resources required for the fund will be drawn from our policy to cut the Sydney back room bureaucracy, which will deliver more than $4.5 billion over four years.

As a State we have to decide what we need to own and where we need to put our resources.

As Premier I would prefer our resources to be tied up in solving our water crisis and drought proofing NSW, rather than running a gaming business and paying for excess back room bureaucrats.

This is the type of disciplined action we need to rescue NSW from recession and get our economy back in front.

NSW can no longer afford Morris Iemma’s ‘softly softly’ approach. We need to set priorities, take decisions and make things happen.

The Drought Proofing Fund will be the first in a series of special purpose infrastructure funds established to ensure we deliver the overdue infrastructure projects that NSW desperately needs to grow our state economy.

The infrastructure fund initiative builds on the policies I announced earlier this year to restore accountability, improve decision making, remove duplication, cut delays, reduce costs and restore public confidence in private public partnerships, that has been decimated by Labor in the wake if the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnel debacles, just to name a few.

These initiatives include:

• establishing a clear, public, infrastructure plan for metropolitan Sydney and NSW that sets out priorities and projects for the near and long term,

• ending silo-based infrastructure decision-making and avoiding project delays by using the successful Olympic Coordination Authority model to deliver a whole-of-government approach,

• establishing an Infrastructure Development Round Table, which I will chair, comprising relevant Ministers, Department Heads and business leaders to identify projects and priorities, recommend improvements to the bid process and drive a national approach to PPPs through COAG and the National reform agenda,

• creating Partnerships NSW to engage the brightest and  most experienced minds from the public and private sectors to ensure each project is funded in a way that delivers optimum public value and outcomes, by appropriately allocating risk and responsibility in any partnership,

• ending the paralysis of Labor’s planning and approval system, by resolving numerous and long over-due regional plans and LEPs across the State to give certainty to residents, councils and investors, and

• reducing bid costs, especially for smaller projects, through greater standardisation of documentation and assessment procedures, tightening up Government specifications to reduce uncertainty in bid design and  ensuring an appropriate balance between necessary probity protections and an instructive flow of information between bidders and clients.

These initiatives are all designed to ensure a Debnam led Coalition Government does not repeat Labor’s mistakes on infrastructure, particularly when it comes to PPPs.

Labor has trashed the reputation of PPPs in NSW as an effective model for delivering the infrastructure that NSW needs, and has betrayed their duty of public trust. This is a bad outcome for the community, for taxpayers and business.

Labor’s approach has been driven by their need to compensate for their own lack of budget discipline as their budget drifts deeper into deficit. The have adopted a ‘whatever it takes’ policy that values expedience over protecting the community interest.

Labor has literally sold out the community, especially on road projects, by trading away road closures and higher tolls so they can pay less and the people of NSW end up paying more.  

Unlike Labor, a Debnam led Coalition Government will have responsible partnerships with the private sector – RPPs - that protect and promote, not exploit, the community interest. 

Finally, at least for today, to get NSW back in front we need to become competitive again. We need to instill a hunger across Government to make sure NSW is out there winning business.

There are few examples that better illustrate the Iemma-Costa Labor Government’s complacency on winning business for NSW than tourism and major events.

Tourism has traditionally made a significant contribution to the NSW economy.  The tourism sector directly employs around 186,000 people, or 5.7% of the NSW workforce and it delivers more than $23 billion into NSW economy every year. 

Tourism is a bigger industry than agriculture, mining or transport and has the capacity to make a significant and much needed contribution to the NSW economy. Yet under the Iemma-Costa Labor Government NSW tourism has been slip sliding away, just like our economy, as it heads to recession.

In 1995, Labor inherited the greatest tourism opportunity in our State’s history, the Sydney Olympics.  We were promised a post-Olympics tourism legacy.

In return Labor has left NSW with the embarrassing record of being the only city to experience a loss of tourism market share after hosting an Olympics.

And regional NSW has been especially hard hit, attracting only 11% of international tourist expenditure, compared with 46% for regional QLD.

Labor’s tourism failure began when it disbanded Tourism NSW as an independent statutory authority and handed tourism promotion over to the bureaucrats – it became a Government Department.

The Carr-Iemma Government also sat back and watched event after event go to other states, forfeiting the field to our competitors. NSW still has no serious major event bidding organization, we don’t even have a team, let alone being on the field.

For twelve years Bob Carr and Morris Iemma have serially and complacently ignored this important sector and the repeated pleas from industry to get NSW tourism back in front.

To get back in front we need to get out their and mix it up with the other states and international competitors. That is why today I announce that a Debnam led Coalition Government will:

• recreate Tourism NSW as a joint venture between the Government and the NSW tourism industry. It will have its own independent, outcomes-driven board and a clear, contracted mandate to grow tourism in NSW. We will also boost funding for the new Tourism NSW with an additional $80m over four years 

• establish Major Events NSW and commit $80 million over four years to develop and promote four new major annual home grown tourist events with two in Greater Sydney, one in country NSW and one in coastal NSW and securing at least four major one-off tourist events in our first term of Government.

Our commitment to tourism and major events is about sending a strong signal that under a Coalition Government NSW will be back in business. That we are no longer prepared to sit at the back of the pack. Rather we want to get NSW back in front and will set the tone from day one.

Over the next fifteen weeks we will continue to outline our policies and engage people, families and businesses throughout NSW about what they can expect from a Coalition Government.

Our policies are fully funded and fully costed and will be independently reviewed prior to the election.

Labor will continue to lie and seek to mislead the people of NSW. But at the end of the day they will be forced to confront the growing realization in the community that after twelve years the Carr-Iemma Government, enough is enough. When something is rotten it’s rotten.

The Coalition has a vision to restore NSW as the Premier State.

I thank for your support to date and look forward to continuing to work together to get NSW back in front.