Page 1326 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 2021
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economy is that Canberrans spent more at cafes and restaurants and across our recreational and cultural sectors, and domestic tourism meant more money was being spent in our hotel and accommodation sector.
As a result of all of this, the ACT has Australia’s strongest job market. The territory’s unemployment rate sat at 3.4 per cent as of March, which was significantly below the territory’s decade average according to the CommSec report. This recovery is reflected also in our underemployment rate, which in the ACT has been trending down since April last year and was sitting at 4.7 per cent in March this year. That is the lowest rate of all Australian jurisdictions. That is important because it means more people are getting the hours of work they want. That is important in terms of household’s incomes. It flows into consumption and it flows into activity for local businesses. That is a virtual circle that reinforces our number one economic objective—that is, is to do everything we can to support the journey back to full employment. We are in an historic position where job vacancies are broadly aligned with those currently seeking employment in the labour market. After last night’s budget we can conclude that the Reserve Bank, led by Governor Phil Lowe, having worked very, very hard to provide the economic environment to see full employment reached in this nation is now, at least for the short term, not swimming against the tide of commonwealth fiscal policy. An alignment of monetary policy, interest rate settings and availability of money in our economy with the commonwealth fiscal policy settings being expansionary at this time sees perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve full employment. We are going to get there first in the ACT, given our starting point, but that is a worthy goal for any government.
I am delighted that Treasurer Frydenberg has listened to the advice of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Secretary of the Commonwealth Treasury, Steven Kennedy. If the Assembly will indulge me, a small shoutout to Dr Kennedy and his team at commonwealth Treasury—their advice has been excellent and it is good to see commonwealth Treasurer listening to his Treasury.
Turning now to economic development priorities, one of the industries the ACT government will continue to support throughout this recovery period is our city’s visitor economy. Domestic tourism is the mainstay of the territory’s tourism market. It has been significantly impacted over the past year and, as members would be aware, international tourism has been completely wiped out. One of the key assumptions in last night’s budget was that international boarders will remain closed well into 2022. With the exception of the New Zealand bubble, which we will focus on in the coming months, our focus for tourism recovery is domestic.
Since our initial measures to support businesses in our most vulnerable sectors, including tourism, during the early stages of the pandemic, we have followed those up by investing in opportunities for tourism businesses to drive demand, to develop new initiatives and create jobs, all with a high level goal of attracting more visitors to our region.
I need to state clearly this morning the government’s firm view that tourism is central to the next stages of our economic recovery. A job in our economy is created for every $152,000 spent by visitors to our city. That is why in September of last year the
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