Page 457 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 February 2020
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We are very proud of our record of job creation for this city, and it is important that this debate also encompasses the effort to ensure that people remain in long-term, stable, secure employment. And the government has pursued policies over an extended period that go both to encourage the creation of new jobs in our economy and to make jobs, particularly low paid jobs in our economy, more secure over the longer term.
It was very pleasing to see that the ACT had the nation-leading level of employment growth with 7½ thousand jobs created in calendar year 2019 and an employment growth rate of 3.3 per cent which leaves every other state and territory in our wake and comes at a time when the national economy has not been performing particularly well. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and we have more job vacancies in Canberra than we have unemployed people at this point in time. And that reflects the government’s focus on jobs.
Nothing will assist a family more in addressing cost of living than having stable, secure, long-term employment. And nothing supports a family more, particularly those who rely on penalty rates to assist them to meet their household budget, than having policies in place to support that consistent, secure, long-term employment. For the opposition leader, whose party has mounted a national campaign against penalty rates for low income workers, to come in here with that speech reflects very poorly on the values of the conservative parties in this nation.
I note the ACTCOSS report that the Leader of the Opposition referred to. It goes to great lengths to point out that those most in need in our society and in our city, just as in every other Australian city, are those who are statutory benefit receivers from the commonwealth. And they go to great lengths to highlight the need for an increase in the Newstart payment.
It is not just that particular commonwealth payment that has not been keeping pace with inflation in this nation. There has not been a real increase in Newstart for 25 years. That is why my amendment goes to highlight that significant issue, and a significant and practical thing that could be done to support thousands of Canberrans who are on the Newstart allowance would be for that to increase. That is why I have been calling for that for quite some time.
The amendment I have moved also goes to highlight the range of assistance that the ACT government provides and the range of new policy initiatives in place to address some of the issues that were raised in the ACTCOSS report and, indeed, have been highlighted by Canberrans.
We acknowledge that the cost of fuel has been a problem—it is not just in Canberra, it is across the nation—but we have some specific market factors in our city that have led to higher prices. We had a constructive parliamentary committee process that made a series of sensible recommendations that the government is adopting and we are already seeing the benefits of that. And you can now buy fuel at a variety of independent retailers up to 20c a litre cheaper than what some of the major fuel companies are selling fuel at. It is worthwhile noting that during the committee’s
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