Page 2250 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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April and May 2020 the pandemic swept away 10,500 jobs in our city, taking total employment to around 227,800. By July the recovery was underway and total employment had increased again above 230,000 jobs to 233,400.
While the ACT economy has shown resilience and performed better than most other jurisdictions across Australia, almost all industries in the territory have been negatively affected by the pandemic to some degree. Our plan will keep Canberrans employed in the industries that are most affected by the pandemic; for example, hospitality. It invests in creating more jobs for these sectors by addressing skills shortages, and focusing on youth employment measures.
We will also establish a Canberra economic recovery advisory group. Priorities for the group will be to identify areas of regulatory reform that will stimulate economic activity and provide advice on how the ACT government can continue to protect and create local jobs. The group will be made up of economists, public policy professionals and representatives from industry groups, unions, community sector partners and small business representatives.
We will support businesses to start and grow, through better regulation and easy interactions with government through Access Canberra. We will continue our significant investment in skills development and education. We will engage with industries that will create secure jobs in the future whilst maintaining high employment standards and protecting workers’ rights.
Today I am also releasing four separate reports following a review into our tax reform program to date—a program that other jurisdictions around the country, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, are now considering. The key findings of the review are that under a scenario where tax reform did not occur, there would have been a lower level of economic activity in the ACT, a lower level of employment, lower investment and lower consumption. If we had not undertaken tax reform, our economy, investment levels and employment rate would have been in worse shape. So these reforms have delivered economic benefits for our community.
Through the reforms we have been able to abolish insurance duty, saving Canberrans hundreds of dollars a year. We have been able to reduce stamp duty so significantly that more low income and lower wealth households now own their own home. Our stamp duty concessions for pensioners and first homebuyers further support increased property activity by removing one of the most significant barriers to home ownership.
The reforms have been independently confirmed as revenue neutral. In fact, the government has collected slightly less tax than if it had left the system as it was. The tax reform program has provided greater certainty to the ACT budget in a time of crisis, and while the impacts are still severe, they would have been far worse had a greater percentage of our own-source revenue still relied on inefficient and volatile taxes like stamp duty and insurance duty. We need only look at New South Wales and Victoria to see what damage an historic over-reliance on stamp duty can do to a state budget.
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