Page 4748 - Week 15 - Thursday, 16 December 1993
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The budget also built upon the Government's enduring commitment to create a socially just community in the ACT. Assistance was provided to the unemployed through extra funding for employment programs; special assistance to disadvantaged youth, Aboriginals and the long-term unemployed; small business training for older retrenched workers; and industry assistance to locate or expand operations in the ACT. Measures to protect the most vulnerable in our community, a group forgotten by the Opposition, were also introduced, including expansion of the child at risk unit; a new Tuggeranong youth centre; extended winter electricity concessions for 19,000 Canberra households; deferment of pensioner concessional rates; more child-care places, including centres at Tuggeranong and Weston; a women's alcohol and drug abuse halfway house; and an after-hours crisis service for mentally and intellectually dysfunctional people. New initiatives to address educational priorities, such as the expanded integration of students with special needs into mainstream schools, and measures to provide better municipal services, such as improvements in waste collection and recycling and library user services, also figured prominently in our budget.
Turning to the ACT economy, the second part of 1993 continues the pattern of strong economic growth revealed for the 1992-93 financial year. In 1992-93 the ACT's gross State product - a measure of the value of all goods and services produced in the Territory - grew by 4 per cent, well above the budget forecast of 2 per cent. Budget forecasts predict an overall GSP growth of 3 per cent in real terms for 1993-94, rising to 4 per cent by 1996-97. On the employment front, in 1992-93 some 6,500 more people had jobs than in the previous year - a 4.4 per cent increase. Since June 1993 employment has grown by a further 3,500 persons or 2.2 per cent. Retail trade, which is the major component of private spending, has also grown strongly over the year, amounting to some 5.6 per cent growth. When this picture is coupled with the continuing strong performance in tourism throughout the year, we are left with undeniable evidence of the soundness of the Government's economic management.
Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the Government's legislative agenda for the year was challenging, and its delivery on that agenda impressive. In purely statistical terms, some 106 Bills were introduced into the Assembly by the Government during the course of 1993. Around 70 per cent of the Government's first priority legislative proposals identified in the two published legislation programs were among the Bills introduced into the Assembly in 1993. These figures compare favourably with previous years and previous governments' statistics; yet, as is often the case, it is the story behind the statistics that is most revealing. The nature of the legislation introduced by the Government reveals our forward looking and reformist nature.
I will take the opportunity to remind members of a few of the more prominent items of legislation. There was an amendment to the Discrimination Act to prohibit age discrimination. The Animal Diseases Bill brings the ACT into line with the States and the Northern Territory in the control of exotic animal diseases and, therefore, meets the Commonwealth's requirements for the ACT's participation in a cost sharing agreement. The Boxing Control Bill establishes a statutory requirement for the protection of the health and safety of boxers. There was the package of legislation to implement a range of uniform regulatory arrangements to apply to health professionals across Australia; the package of legislation designed to upgrade the law relating to food in the Territory; the Health Complaints Bill, which puts in place a regime to deal with complaints against health providers in the ACT; the Commissioner for the Environment Bill,
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