Page 2999 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 September 1993
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This budget continues and builds upon our strategy with further small revenue increases and targeted savings measures. It will also put in place measures for future years to help create a sustainable financial future for the Territory. The budget restrains government spending to an increase that is less than the consumer price index. Our own-source recurrent revenues will grow only in pace with the ACT economy. A recurrent budget surplus and provisions from previous years mean that we will have minimum borrowing requirements. We have met the challenge imposed by the Commonwealth with a budget that is fair, that tackles the hard questions of government spending, and that provides extra support to the most disadvantaged in our community.
Several measures in this budget increase assistance to the growing numbers of long-term unemployed. Concessions are being retargeted to provide greater assistance to those who need it most. Other initiatives respond to the needs of women, children and youth, and mentally dysfunctional people. The aspirations and concerns of Aboriginal Canberrans in this International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples are also recognised.
The expanding business community in Canberra is the engine that generates the future jobs needed to sustain our growth. Our programs support and encourage that growth. Capital works essential to the development of our community and the maintenance of public assets will be sustained at high levels. These works, and those of the Commonwealth Government and private industry, will continue to sustain the large work force in Canberra's building industry. This is a responsible budget which both continues and reasserts our strategic approach to the long-term financial challenge facing the Territory. At the same time, it reflects the Government's commitment to social justice in our community.
The Government has not prepared this budget in isolation. We have been careful to listen to the community. The Government received a number of well-prepared budget submissions on many topics. I also met personally with key organisations while the budget was being formulated. Less formally, members of the Government also receive feedback through the many letters we receive and during the meetings and frequent public events we attend. The Wastewatch Hotline also provided input to our budget deliberations. The Government has paid a good deal of attention to these community barometers.
Madam Speaker, 1992-93 was a year of strong economic growth in the ACT. Gross state product, a measure of the value of all goods and services produced in the Territory, increased by 4 per cent in real terms, while the national economy remained sluggish with only 2.5 per cent growth. This was a very pleasing performance and somewhat stronger than we expected at the time of the last budget. With some of the major growth contributors now passing their peak, we are forecasting a reduction in the real growth rate to 3 per cent in 1993-94.
The Territory has been shielded from the worst of the national recession by our strong public employment base. Retail trade, which is the major component of private spending, grew by 4.9 per cent in the year in real terms, or more than twice as fast as for Australia as a whole. Spending on housing was also very strong in the ACT, with finance approved for housing growing by a huge 42 per cent. However, housing activity moves in big swings, and we must expect that in 1993-94 it will be lower than the unsustainably high levels of last year.
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