Page 1124 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 29 May 2007
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This budget comes at a time of significant private investment spending in the ACT, eclipsing that recorded during the construction of new Parliament House. Confidence in the retail sector continues unabated, as evidenced by the extensive additions to the Canberra Centre and the continuing redevelopment of a number of suburban shopping centres. This demonstrates that activity in the ACT is not just a public sector spending phenomenon. In fact, strong growth in the surrounding region is leading to the ACT’s position as an important regional centre.
The expansion of a number of commonwealth departments will increase job opportunities in the ACT. There are approximately 5,200 additional jobs budgeted for nationally, with the most optimistic estimates being that 2,000 will be located in Canberra. The ACT government is always grateful—as is, of course, the community—for the additional labour market stimulation provided by the commonwealth budget. However, it can be a mixed blessing at a time when the housing market is tight both for renters and buyers and when we are experiencing essentially full employment. In relation to additional employment, I would be pleased if we could manage to achieve a significant centre of employment within Gungahlin, and that is an issue which we must all continue to pursue. Further announcements of the kind made by the commonwealth continue to place pressure on all of us to ensure that workplaces are provided within all of our major town centres.
I am also concerned about the impact—and I say this as an aside—of this jobs growth on the territory’s ability, with our limited budget capacity, to attract and retain its own public servants, and this is an issue which the private sector, too, is facing more and more. It is becoming increasingly difficult for alternative employers within the territory to compete with the federal government in respect of recruitment.
I said at the time of the last budget that big spending by the commonwealth was likely to put upward pressure on interest rates. Since that time Canberrans have faced a 50 basis point increase in interest rates. That means, of course, that a typical house buyer in the ACT is having to find an additional $60 a month. To put it another way, a $300,000 loan is now costing Canberrans over $100 more every payday than it cost them two years ago during the infamous “no interest rate rises in this term” campaign conducted by the Prime Minister. Senator Humphries enthusiastically embraced the campaign that a vote for the Liberals in the ACT was a vote for no interest rate increases in the term of this particular parliament.
While this past commonwealth budget has spent $52 billion coming on top of the $17.5 billion spent in the preceding six months, there are, of course, as we all know, a number of areas that have not been addressed. Of great importance to the ACT currently, of course, is the drought. It is to be noted that the federal budget is based on an assumption that we are on the verge of a return to more normal long-term climatic conditions and, in particular, more normal rainfall patterns. Indeed, those are predictions which the Bureau of Meteorology continues to maintain, and I hope that we are on that verge. But it is a big risk. And it is a big risk to be taking particularly for communities like ours that are confronting historically low water inflows—communities that are looking at considerable investments in infrastructure in the years ahead. The drought, if it continues, will not be without significant cost to communities
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