Page 924 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021
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The ACT is in a strong fiscal position, and with a state final demand of around 4 to 5 per cent, things are looking promising.
That is true, and it perhaps belies some of the commentary that we heard last night.
Turning now to economic development, what will the government do to continue this momentum, to support jobs growth in our economy and to get to 250,000 jobs in the territory by 2025? There are a range of measures to support the recovery of our tourism sector—investment in marketing, in COVID-safe tourism co-investment programs, cooperative marketing funds and supporting the recovery of the aviation sector. I welcome the entry into our market of Rex Airlines.
In tertiary education, we have provided our universities with payroll tax deferrals of up to $10 million to ease cashflow pressures. With Study Canberra, we are working in conjunction with the universities, through the Summer Connections program, to keep those students who are here, internationally and domestically from other parts of Australia, engaged.
We have our Future Jobs Fund, designed to support the universities and key growth industry areas. We have applied research partnerships and projects that will boost productivity as well as save and create jobs in Canberra as we recover from the impacts of COVID-19.
Through the Priority Investment Program, we have supported funding for a range of important projects that support the space industry, our university sector, renewable energy, cybersecurity and agritechnology. We are seeing significant growth in these industry sectors.
The government has supported, through the space industry programs, the establishment of the Quantum Optical Ground Station at Mount Stromlo. We have enabled free access for national space industry SMEs, start-ups and researchers to the largest space flight test facilities in Australia at the ANU. We have established the Australian national space mission design facility at UNSW Canberra, to bring together industry, agencies and the research sector. We have supported an industry research consortium to establish and demonstrate space-based quantum crypto communications, and we have supported a number of spin-off companies out of our universities, including Skykraft, to collaborate with multinational space companies to develop and launch smallsat constellations for space-based global services and capability—of course, developing capability within our economy for global export.
Through the defence industry work, we are working closely with the Australian Industry and Defence Network, CBRIN, AustCyber’s Canberra node in the Australian Space Agency, the Centre for Defence Industry Capability and the Department of Defence to build local capability. There will be a Team Canberra exhibition at the Land Forces 2021 event in Brisbane in the middle of the year.
Earlier this month, Minister Cheyne announced, on behalf of the government, a commitment to the Canberra Cyber Hub, capitalising on opportunities that this
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