Page 107 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 December 2008
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this statement covering my major portfolio areas of treasury, health and community services.
Madam Assistant Speaker, the ACT Labor government hit the ground running after the election. We are listening to the people of Canberra. We are investing in our community’s future. We are delivering on the commitments we made to the people of the ACT before the election.
As Treasurer, my paramount duty in this environment of global financial uncertainty is to continue the strong, prudent financial management Canberrans have come to expect from the ACT government. The current situation reminds us that the global economy is connected. What happens on the stock market in the United States or in factories in China has an effect on Australia. Our nation is not isolated from the impacts of the downturn and there is an inevitable trickle-down effect on our local economy here in the ACT. It shows we are not immune.
There are, indeed, significant challenges and we should not underestimate the extent of these challenges, nor the impact they will have on our local economy. But we should not be fixated on the doom and gloom when that is not what is warranted. There is fundamental strength in the national and ACT economies.
The commonwealth government has taken decisive action to protect the national economy from the worst of the impacts. The Prime Minister has shown leadership by injecting billions of dollars into an economic security strategy that provides more money for first homeowners, carers and pensioners and tens of thousands of new training places to create more jobs.
Two weeks ago at the Council of Australian Governments here in Canberra, the commonwealth government put additional money into key government services—health, education, training and housing—to stimulate the economy, create more jobs and provide a greater degree of certainty to the Australian community.
As Treasurer I have inherited an economy that is in a very sound position and a budget that has a sound structure. While the challenges we face are significant, they are going to be manageable because of the position of strength from which we come. There are good reasons to maintain confidence in the territory’s economy. The ACT is better placed than many jurisdictions to withstand the worst of the economic downturn.
The engine room of our economy, the labour market, remains strong. Unemployment in the ACT is at 2.7 per cent and close to a record low. It has remained so during the unfolding of the global financial and economic downturn. A large proportion of Canberra’s workforce is employed in the government sector and with the commonwealth’s position of increased spending, our labour market is likely to have less instability compared with other jurisdictions. Our budget is in a strong position. We have reduced significantly the historical mismatch between our revenues and our expenses. We created the buffer to deal with unforeseen circumstances and fiscal shocks.
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