Page 3551 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 23 November 2021
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economy for each Canberran increased and went over the $100,000 mark to $100,523. The ABS has also reported that nominal gross household disposable income per capita grew by 2.1 per cent and has now reached nearly $96½ thousand per capita. The ACT has the highest gross household disposable income in Australia and is well above the Australian average.
As we look to the further detail of the sectors that contributed to our growth, I am pleased to say it was broad based, from smaller niche sectors of our economy like agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining. Agriculture, forestry and fishing grew by nearly 20 per cent. Mining, which is principally services and technology to the Australian mining industry, grew by 31 per cent. They are relatively small parts of our economy but, as we look to the larger areas, wholesale trade grew by 9.6 per cent; retail trade by 7.3 per cent; accommodation and food services by 5.2 per cent; media and telecommunications by 4.4 per cent; rental, hiring and real estate services by 3.5 per cent; professional, scientific and technical services by 6.9 per cent—$300 million extra in output in gross state product from professional, scientific and technical services in our $43.37 billion economy; a stellar performance in that area.
I know that criticism is often made, including by Mr Cain when he suggests that the ACT’s growth is too heavily focused on public administration and safety. Yes, it is clearly the largest area of the territory’s gross state product but it grew by 2.7 per cent, less than the territory-wide average growth of 2.8 per cent. We saw that education, in a very tough year for education export, still grew by 1.3 per cent. Healthcare and social assistance are up by 4.4 per cent. Arts and recreation services—again, a stellar performance in a very difficult year—grew by 6.5 per cent. To put some context to this, that is another $19 million of output from that sector, taking it over $300 million as its contribution to the territory economy. These are pleasing indicators of broad-based growth across the territory economy.
When we delve deeper into what are the other drivers, beyond consumption of the territory’s economic growth, it is worth looking at the contributions of the public sector. As I look at public investment—that is, the infrastructure programs—the commonwealth’s spending as a share of GSP reduced. It fell by 2.2 per cent. The ACT government’s share increased, and from 2019-20 to 2021-22 that increased by 6.3 per cent. Of the 2.8 per cent of our growth, 0.1 per cent of that is solely attributed to the ACT government’s infrastructure investment program. So it was a net positive contributor, together with all of those other industry sectors that in fact offset an equivalent reduction in the commonwealth government’s infrastructure investment.
Where will we see future growth? Clearly the reopening of the Australian border and the opportunity for us to continue what had been nation-leading growth in the export of services—principally, international education; tourism; professional, scientific and technical services associated with services to foreign governments—largely by hundreds and hundreds of firms in this territory who sell services to governments external from Australia in our region, from the Pacific and to developing countries and economies in South East Asia, taking advantage of free trade agreements and deals in the United States, in Europe—means we will continue to see companies that have located in the ACT because of our skilled workforce, because of access to
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