Page 817 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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employment, despite the fact that the labour market has been assisted to a large extent by the presence of a stable public sector. In recent months there has been a fall in unemployment, but we need to see this trend reinforced for a few months yet before we can feel greater confidence. Although the unemployment rate for teenagers looking for full-time jobs fell to a relatively low 11.7 per cent in May, it had been much higher in the previous months. At this stage I am not convinced that there has been a permanent improvement, as the statistical sample is too small to be completely reliable. The Government will continue to give priority to youth training and employment.
The outlook for the ACT economy in 1992-93 is largely governed by national economic trends. The measures announced in the Prime Minister's One Nation statement aim to provide a short-term stimulus to the economy by boosting business and consumer confidence, reducing structural impediments to growth and improving the prospects for low inflation. This has been reinforced by the additional funding provided to the States at the Premiers Conference. Accordingly, it is expected that the national economy will experience growth in 1992-93, with a flow-on effect to the ACT. There is little likelihood of growth in Commonwealth public sector employment in the ACT. Demographic forecasts project a continued high 2.3 per cent rate of population growth in the ACT in 1992-93. This should continue to support an increase in economic activity. Recently released labour force and employment projections suggest a growth of 1.5 per cent or 2,200 jobs during 1992-93.
The relationship between the economic conditions and our financial constraints needs to be taken into account. We are committed to the creation of new jobs and improved training; yet there are only limited opportunities for creating jobs from our diminishing resources. We will therefore pursue selective opportunities for increasing the skill base of our labour force. We will ensure that our taxing effort does not place onerous demands on business. There is also no getting away from the inevitability that we must continue to make the public sector more efficient.
Madam Speaker, last December, when we published the forward estimates for the next three years, the figures indicated a gap between expected revenue and expenditure, recurrent and capital combined, of approximately $40m next year. Since then there have been a number of developments, many of them national rather than local, which have resulted in a combined recurrent and capital budget gap currently estimated at over $70m. The major factors contributing to this change in our budget outlook have been an increased demand for welfare concessions and benefits, an increased demand for TAFE places and other training, an increase in school enrolments and a movement from private to public schools, a continued shift from private insurance to public patient status in hospitals, and a reduction in the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimate of the ACT's proportion of the national population. This alone reduced our funding in 1991-92 by $5m and will have a flow-on effect into 1992-93. There has also been an increased demand for public housing, which is met from within the resources of the Housing Trust.
The Government's announcement earlier this year that the planned capital works program would be accelerated will generate employment for about 330 people in the ACT, but it will also have an impact on future budgets by bringing forward into 1992-93 an additional $22m for capital works, with the associated borrowings and debt servicing payments. Last week the Government referred its proposed
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