Page 1256 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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In the context of a global recession, a context that all respectable economists and industry leaders recognise—in fact everyone except perhaps Mr Smyth and the Liberal Party—the remarkable resilience of our economy to date is a reflection of our highly skilled, highly participative, highly motivated workforce, and our strong record of public and private investment in productive infrastructure, education and skills, the traditional strengths of our economy.
While we are better placed than most to withstand the crisis, it is naive, of course, to think that the territory will be immune to those effects. The pity of it will be if those effects are greater because of the constant talking down of the economy which we see from the Liberal Party, the scaremongering and the talking into recession which is part and parcel of the Liberal Party’s agenda.
Contrary to what they suggest, thinking that the ACT government, or any government for that matter, have the ability to recession-proof their economy even through such recession-busting initiatives as the cutting down of the supply of paper, really is just fanciful. The world is a connected place, but we are better placed than many others. Our employment is still holding, thank goodness. Our labour market would have relatively greater stability because of a larger public sector, and the decisions of this government and the federal government have, in fact, cushioned the effects of the global slowdown.
The large increase in dwelling investment is, of course, related in part to the large uptake of the first homebuyers grant, but it is also a result of decisions that this government has taken over the last four years in relation to land supply and a full suite of housing affordability initiatives, the impact of which we are seeing well and truly now in the market.
I touch again briefly, before closing, on Mr Smyth’s attempts to talk the economy down, to talk the ACT into recession and to oppose for opposition’s sake. I note that he has suggested in a recent media release, which he repeated again today, that we have been skating near disaster for the last year and a half. In 2007-08 the ACT’s gross state product grew by 2.5 per cent. The trend level of unemployment rose two per cent over the last 18 months. The economy has grown significantly in that period. Thousands of extra jobs have been created and unemployment has fallen. Sound economists and industry leaders do not believe that this economy is skating anywhere near disaster.
In relation to the ACT’s budget, we see that repeated most recently by Standard and Poor’s, who actually make the point that our credit rating is absolutely sound and secure. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (10.47): Mr Speaker, while the Greens share Mr Smyth’s deep concern for the current financial situation both within the ACT and nationally—and, in fact, globally—the substance of this motion appears to be covering ground that has already been discussed at length during the Assembly’s last sitting period.
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