Page 534 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.29): I will make a couple of points at the outset to respond to Mr Cornwell. The first is that the ACT continues to enjoy the lowest rate of unemployment in the country in general unemployment. In the second place, I have protested strenuously against every removal of a job or an organisation from Canberra. What Mr Cornwell fails to take note of is that some Commonwealth public service bodies have been moving into Canberra, such as the Defence Signals Directorate. In fact, overall, there has been an increase in Commonwealth public service jobs in Canberra. Finally, I would like to echo the words of a distinguished commentator on Fightback. Not one of ours, but a person who I would have thought was in the Liberal league has said that the only jobs which will be created under Fightback will be in the Tax Office for the people who are trying to tally up what everybody is doing.
My Government has never shirked its responsibility to tackle the problem of unemployment and we have always given the fight against unemployment our No. 1 priority. There are two ways to tackle the problem of unemployment, and those are job creation and training. On being re-elected last year, my Government showed that it was concerned to boost jobs by accelerating the capital works program, which provided an additional 330 jobs. The Government gave the go-ahead to the casino. The interim casino has provided an additional 350 jobs, many of them for young people, and the permanent casino will create 280 jobs during the construction phase and approximately 500 jobs when it is complete. We have continued to support the establishment of an international air freight centre at the Canberra Airport and we have provided some funding towards that end. The aim of our support for that project was, of course, the creation of jobs.
The ACT Tourism Commission was provided with $380,000 for the establishment of a tourism development unit to attract and develop new developments and to identify gaps within existing tourism infrastructure, which will result in increased visitor numbers and increased employment. This Government has a strategy to work with business, industry, unions and the community to achieve development and employment growth in the ACT. There have been a number of consultative forums established. The Economic Priorities Advisory Committee of the ACT, the Industrial Relations Advisory Committee, the Government Business Forum and the South-East Economic Development Council have been established. I am not saying that I established all of these. Issues such as employment and economic development are addressed.
The Government recognises that the future development of the ACT is linked to the growth of the private sector. We have been successful in attracting new businesses to the ACT. Apart from the casino, which I have already mentioned, the following new businesses are now going on in the ACT: Maestro, Optus, Azimuth, the Centre for Plant Science and the Centre for Robust and Adaptive Systems, the Centre for Advanced Computational Systems, the ACT Wool Topping Facility and Total Peripherals. These will all provide the sorts of jobs that we want in Canberra - high technology, knowledge based and clean manufacturing. Approximately 1,300 jobs will be involved there by the end of 1994.
We are also providing practical support and encouragement for small business. The Business Services Centre provides information, advice and referral services to more than 250 clients each month. In addition, we have now established a second business incubator at Kingston to support and encourage new small businesses in
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