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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 288 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

achieved provides us with a solid foundation for improving our quality of life in the ACT.

It frankly and honestly appraises quality of life in the ACT and is a genuine attempt by the government to measure our performance and progress.

The focus of the government over the past five years has been on the economy. In that time, we have helped create more than 11,500 new jobs, and the number of unemployed Canberrans has reduced by nearly 10 per cent.

And we have all but balanced the books. The draft 2000-2001 ACT Budget, released for community comment a few weeks ago, is the ACT's first ever balanced budget.

But economic indicators do not tell the whole story about quality of life, and they don't show the overall impact that government decisions have on the lives of everyday Canberrans.

The State of the Territory Report recognises that we need to look at a more rounded picture of life in the ACT - that there are many other contributors beside the government influencing our quality of life.

This kind of approach is not new for the government. The government has already worked in partnership with the ACT Council of Social Services on other social initiatives like the Quality of Life project and the poverty inquiry.

The State of the Territory report builds on these initiatives, and takes a much wider look at social issues in the ACT. We have investigated national and international approaches to measuring, quality of life when preparing the report.

We have examined American, Canadian and British reports as well as the work done by the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. We have researched the World Health Organisation's Healthy Cities project and the World's best livable cities project. But none of them was ideal for measuring the quality of life in the ACT, although the Alberta report from Canada provided some useful insights.

As this is the first time any area in Australia has produced a report like this, there were some constraints on the data that were available. The most robust data available have been used. Generally, the data used are from the past three years, except where the 1996 Census offers the most reliable and comprehensive information.

The report relies heavily on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data because they include national and state comparisons. Government agency data have also been used where they are more recent or comparable.

The report is structured around 4 interlinking themes and a series of quality of life goals. The 4 themes are our people, our community, our environment and our economy.

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