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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 4021 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Now that I have finally resigned from the Legislative Assembly it is important to clarify my future intentions so as to avoid any misconception.

I have established my own company AVPLANE ASIA PACIFIC PTY LTD, the main business of which will be to advise Australian companies on how to better export services onto the booming Asian market.

I am pleased to confirm that I have secured a first order from Australian Water Services to assist them in promoting Australian expertise in operations and technology in the overseas market.

Naturally any other company that wished to secure my services is welcome to do so. I am open for business.

Mr De Domenico made it clear that he has gone into the private sector. He has set up his own company and is willing to deal with all sorts of different companies.

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, you never hear anything about jobs from those people over there - not a word. My question is to the Chief Minister, who is very conscious of jobs. I understand that three separate assessments of the ACT labour market have found growing demand for labour and falling unemployment. Chief Minister, can you summarise the findings of these surveys and inform the parliament whether they are consistent with a strengthening economic recovery?

MRS CARNELL: Is it not extraordinary, Mr Speaker, that we have actually had a question about jobs, a question about something that the people of Canberra actually care about, a question about something that people in this town actually need, that is, jobs? Mr Speaker, if issues were running in last week's Melbourne Cup, as far as the people of Canberra went, jobs would come first and daylight would come second. Those opposite simply do not realise what is important to the people of Canberra. Yet here we are, five days into a sitting period, and how many questions have the Opposition managed to ask about the important issue for the ACT - jobs? Not one question.

In the past two days we have seen the release of three separate assessments of the state of the labour market in the ACT, and all three show a significant improvement in job prospects. First, there was the Morgan and Banks job index, which was a survey of the hiring intentions of small, medium and large employers. It shows that 35 per cent of Canberra employers plan to increase their staff numbers and 50 per cent plan to maintain their staff numbers in the coming quarter. Only 15 per cent plan to reduce staff. That means the organisations planning to increase or maintain staff outnumber those planning to cut staff by six to one. They are not bad figures, Mr Speaker. This is a dramatic turnaround on about a year ago, when more employers were planning to reduce staff than were planning to increase staff.

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