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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2744 ..

Mr Berry: Do not mislead us. Measure it from when you took office.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Opposition has been interjecting continually since the beginning of this answer, as they do with every answer that the Chief Minister gives. I would ask that the Chief Minister be afforded the protection of the Chair.

MR SPEAKER: I notice that when some answers are being given there is an attempt to drown out the person giving the answers. If I cannot hear, I shall merely ask for the answer to be repeated and repeated until such times as I can hear. I shall also take action against people who repeatedly interject in an attempt to stifle the reply - - -

Mr Wood: That was not the Liberals' view some time ago when they were in opposition, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: And you, Mr Wood, are now warned.

MRS CARNELL: This is a big step for Bill, Mr Speaker. There are now 7,200 more jobs in Canberra. The trend unemployment rate has dropped from 8.5 per cent to 7.2 per cent. There are 1,800 fewer unemployed people and our participation rate has grown from 71.1 per cent to 73.2 per cent. I understand why those opposite do not like these figures, but I think they are important to Canberra. I understand that Mr Berry, in his new direction for Labor mark IV in the last two years, today suggested that jobs were the most important issue. We would totally agree with that, so we are giving Mr Berry some good information about how this Government has succeeded in this area.

Put simply, under Mr Whitecross's "more of the same from Kate Carnell would be bad news for Canberra" banner, we have had nine consecutive months of employment growth since the downturn of 1996. I would have to say that I think most Canberrans would think, "If that is what more of the same means, let us have more nine consecutive months of employment growth". There is other positive news coming from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. They are not our figures.

Let us have a look at the Australian Securities Commission figures. In the June quarter of this year there were 1,061 new business registrations in the ACT - an increase of more than 25 per cent over the previous three months.

Mr Corbell: How many of those businesses operated in the ACT?

MRS CARNELL: I will get to that.

Mr Corbell: How many operated in the ACT?

MRS CARNELL: We will get to all of these issues. What we have is a 25 per cent increase over the previous three months in new business registrations. For the first four months of 1997 there were 529 new incorporations in the ACT, compared with 398 for the same period in 1996 - an increase of 33 per cent. For the first four months of this year

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