Page 3583 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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The ACT government’s strong fiscal management is delivering social and economic benefits. Earlier this month that argument was further validated by the release of Standard & Poor’s 2017 RatingsDirect report into the creditworthiness of the ACT government, which awarded our jurisdiction top marks. The report states:
The government has a sound track record of managing its economy and fiscal position through shocks such as the 2014 Commonwealth fiscal consolidation, and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.
Canberra has been forced to confront some tough economic and fiscal headwinds in recent years, all of which were out of its own control. It is now legend that the former federal Labor government saved Australia from recession in 2008 and 2009 through its economic stimulus package, which the International Monetary Fund lauded as a “timely and significant macro-policy response which cushioned the domestic impact of the global financial crisis”.
While there is no doubt that the global financial crisis was a challenge for the ACT, for us the real shock came with the election of the current Liberal government and its disastrous 2014 budget, which slashed jobs and began the morale-destroying APS bargaining crusade which has seen wages stagnate in the departments and agencies that provide jobs to our residents and in turn create demand for our 26,000 local businesses. The Standard & Poor’s assessment points out:
The ACT experienced a milder slowdown than the other states during the global financial crisis in 2009.
However, with the Commonwealth government’s announcement of fiscal consolidation in 2014, the ACT’s economy was hit disproportionately harder than other states.
We were subject to the election of a federal government that continues to be ideologically opposed to the role of the public sector. For the Liberals, it was about small government; it was about free market fundamentalism that sought to see the role of the public service minimised, dislocated and, where possible, eradicated. My own electorate has suffered through thousands of commonwealth public servants being cut or relocated from Woden town centre. That anti-Canberra agenda is still being continued to this day with the APVMA relocation to Armidale and the continued threats of more to come, including talk just this week of Comcare being moved to Geelong.
This had an impact on the ACT economy and the budget. But one of the reasons why Canberra was able to manage through this time is that we had one government here in Canberra that was prepared to stand up for Canberrans. Our Labor government stepped up to keep the economy growing when there was a real risk of our growth going backwards. It invested in Canberra when other governments were withdrawing their presence.
The government in the ACT introduced a stimulus package, including initiatives designed to provide confidence and economic stimulus to the ACT building and
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