Page 770 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
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we did experience, particularly over the last year or so. As I said, the Hudson report shows that businesses in the ACT are particularly confident about their prospects, and that result is consistent with the very strong investment and construction activity that is happening in the ACT.
It is relevant that I inform or advise members of some of those very strong indicators of how well the economy of the ACT is doing. Confidence, of course, is very important. We know that businesses will invest and build only when they are confident about their prospects, when they are confident about the economy and, of course, when they are confident about the government that has its hands on the levers in a particular jurisdiction. That is very much the position now within the ACT. I think that, if we were to concede that there is some relevance as a measure of economic strength in the building and construction activity and the level of investment in the ACT, we would all concede just how well the ACT is performing at the moment.
It is not a matter of simply counting the cranes on the skyline, although that is, I think, a great and very public and positive measure of how the city is performing. There are indeed some far more sophisticated ways of measuring how an economy is performing and it is relevant, and I am sure members would be interested to know, that, since this Labor government came to office in the ACT, investment in the ACT has grown by 59 per cent in real terms. The real value of construction work undertaken in the ACT has recorded an average annual growth of 6.2 per cent since Labor came to government just over four years ago.
Over the same period, investment in New South Wales grew by 32 per cent, against the 59 per cent growth in investment in the ACT, and the real value of construction work in New South Wales recorded an average annual growth of 2.5 per cent against the ACT’s 6.2 per cent. That gives a very real indication of the level of activity in the ACT and the strength of the economy here.
The good news is set to continue. We have this unprecedented level of construction being undertaken in the city at the moment and, as at the December quarter of 2005 the value of building work in the pipeline was estimated to be just over $1 billion, $820 million. So, despite this unprecedented level of construction and building activity in the territory, as of December there was estimated to be $820 million worth of further work in the pipeline.
There is a range of other indicators of the strength of the economy. Retail activity in the ACT is running at well above the national figure. The tourism sector is also experiencing some relatively strong times and growth. The occupancy rate in the ACT at the moment is 70.9 per cent, five per cent higher than the national occupancy figure, and is showing an annual increase of double the national rate of increase in bed occupancy. Significant and important for the ACT are the housing start or dwelling commencement statistics released just a week or so ago. At the rate of 6.6 per cent of dwelling commencements, the ACT had the single biggest bounce in dwelling approvals in Australia, and trend dwelling approvals now are at the highest level for almost two years, which is some indication and some sign of some bounce out of the doldrums of a year or so ago.
These are all absolutely excellent figures pointing to the underlying strength of the ACT economy, reinforced by those outside surveys of organisations such as Hudson and
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