Page 407 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 February 2020
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practical terms, that meant that 7½ thousand additional jobs were created in the ACT in calendar year 2019. So we have a situation now where there are more job vacancies in the ACT than there are unemployed people.
Sixty per cent of the jobs created since the beginning of 2016 have been in the private sector, and 18 of the 19 industry categories in the ACT recorded growth in 2018-19. The only industry sector that did not grow in the territory was the mining sector, which, as I am sure members would understand, is not a particularly significant industry sector in the ACT.
MR PETTERSSON: Chief Minister, what are some of the upcoming challenges facing the ACT economy?
MR BARR: We are facing the most uncertain set of economic circumstances nationally, and indeed in the territory, since the global financial crisis. There has been the significant impact of the natural disasters this summer season: the bushfires, smoke haze and hailstorms—with another, potentially, this afternoon—which have caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. These extreme events are a new risk to our economic outlook as the realities of climate change become more apparent.
There are also significant economic implications of the coronavirus which affect our two major export-earning sectors: international education and tourism. For example, each international student studying in Canberra contributes around $50,000 to our economy by way of their tuition fees and their local expenditure. The ANU is down 4,000 students from China at this point who have been unable to arrive. That is about $200 million worth of economic impact. The University of Canberra has a little over 400 students who have been unable to arrive, an economic impact of around $20 million. That is just those cases.
It is a challenging economic environment, the most challenging one that this nation has faced for more than a decade. It is something that all levels of government are working to respond to.
MR GUPTA: Chief Minister, how will the government prepare our economy for these challenges and take advantage of opportunities?
MR BARR: We will continue to focus on the priority areas for public investment in our economy: in health, in education, to keep the territory’s strong infrastructure program going, in transport, in responding to climate change and in supporting vulnerable Canberrans. It is important at this point that all governments continue to invest in major infrastructure projects to support economic growth. It is going to be public sector investment that keeps Australia out of recession in the first part of this calendar year. It is important that we make good long-term infrastructure investments to provide the services that Canberrans need now and into the future. The public sector has an absolutely integral role to play in driving economic growth in our nation at this time of very significant economic challenge. Now more than ever, Canberra needs certainty from government.
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