Page 5816 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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changed South Australia’s outlook from stable to negative. Yet today they have reaffirmed the ACT’s credit rating.
This is not the only news on the ACT economy today. We continue to be a high wage, low unemployment economy. Some take this for granted but it is important to note that it places us in a very stable position compared to the rest of the country, and this remains the case following the commonwealth government’s midyear economic and fiscal outlook.
A few facts about MYEFO—because there has been a lot of talk, and, not surprisingly coming from the shadow Treasurer, a lot of it has been disingenuous. Fact 1: GST payments in the ACT are projected to decrease because the overall GST pool is reduced. Fact 2: specific purpose payments, national partnership payments, particularly including funding for mental health and funding for the Majura parkway, into the territory mean that the funding for the territory is in fact projected to increase. This will result in a positive outcome for the territory. ACT Treasury estimates an improvement of $46 million over the next four years. So it is disappointing that some would irresponsibly cherry-pick one figure and try to paint a negative picture.
Fact 3: the commonwealth has brought in a new efficiency dividend to bring its budget back to surplus in 2012-13. The commonwealth is also undertaking significant new programs in coming years around the clean energy future and minerals resource rent tax. These facts point to a very different picture than some might suggest. The commonwealth government is showing expenditure restraint. That has allowed the Reserve Bank to move on monetary policy, so yesterday the Reserve Bank again reduced the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent.
This is great news for the territory economy and I would have thought would have been something that both sides of this chamber would have agreed is good news for Canberrans with a mortgage. It is also welcome for retailers in the lead-up to the busy Christmas season. It sends a very strong signal to consumers and to businesses and will certainly free up income for expenditure coming into the holiday season.
MS PORTER: A supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, what implications do these announcements have for the government’s fiscal strategy?
MR BARR: Standard & Poor’s reaffirmation of our AAA credit rating provides a further endorsement of the ACT’s fiscal strategy. It demonstrates confidence in the ACT government and in the strength of our balance sheet. Despite all of the catcalling from the Canberra Liberals, we have retained our AAA credit rating, so it is clear that the Canberra Liberals’ arguments lack fiscal substance.
As I noted earlier this year in my economic statement to the Assembly, the overseas outlook does remain difficult and it is uncertain.
Opposition members interjecting—
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