Page 1785 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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will be playing at the new Singapore sports hub, representing Australia in the world tens rugby championships. It is a fantastic opportunity to bring together our new brand, our tourism partners and our ICT partners. The universities are attending. There will be alumni events in Singapore for the ANU and the University of Canberra. It is a significant opportunity in a really important market for us. There has been an overwhelming level of support and desire to be part of this trade mission. It demonstrates that the government’s direction is correct, and it is strongly supported by the business community. We saw that this morning in the nature of the debate at the breakfast function, with the ideas that were put forward at that function, and also in the various roundtables that the Chief Minister and I have been holding on business and economic development.
There is excitement around the innovation network, a desire to work collaboratively. It is an opportunity, in my view, to utilise the government’s infrastructure program to leverage private sector co-investment. As I said this morning at the budget breakfast, that co-investment does not have to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars or even in the tens of millions of dollars; at a local level in this community, any co-investment will be welcomed and supported by this government, particularly in relation to improving the productive capacity of the economy and opening up opportunities for this economy to sell more—services predominantly, but some goods—to the rest of Australia and to the rest of the world.
This economy is too small to be insular. It is too small to operate in isolation from the rest of the nation or the rest of the world. Our future lies in high value exports in our knowledge-based industries and in partnerships with our national institutions, particularly the universities and the research institutions, NICTA and the CSIRO. They are the exciting opportunities for this economy. They are the opportunities that this government is seeking to pursue.
We see that through the innovation network, through the business development strategy and through the measures in this budget, particularly measures such as the cut to payroll tax that ensures that, with the previous cut just two years ago, $25,000 a year less payroll tax is being paid by those who pay the tax, and the overwhelming majority of businesses in this territory pay no payroll tax at all. Our threshold, I understand, is approaching three times the one that applies across the border in New South Wales. So businesses in the ACT with a payroll of up to $5.1 million now have the most attractive and competitive payroll tax arrangements in the Australian Capital Territory. We are seeing businesses taking advantage of that and employing more people. It is clear from the data contained within the most recent snapshots of the territory economy that those opportunities are being taken up.
Ultimately, what we need to do is support job creation across the board. I am delighted when there is more private sector employment in this economy, but I do not have an aversion to more public sector employment. I want to see more jobs in Canberra, full stop. It is as straightforward as that. It would be fantastic if every month we could set a new record for employment, but the reality of the next two or three years is that, in striving for that goal of another new record every month, the largest employer will be shedding staff. We have to make up 2,000 jobs in the next 12 months before we can get back to where we are now.
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