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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4095 ..
MS CARNELL (continuing):
the same time, the unemployment rate for men went down to just 6 per cent. To put this into perspective, when Mr Berry was last in government, there were 5,100 unemployed women. Today, there are just 4,700 - a very real reduction, even when the population, of course, has increased. When Mr Berry was last in government, there were 6,700 unemployed men. Today, there are just 5,700. When Mr Berry was last in government, the unemployment rate was 7.1 per cent. Today, it is 5.8 per cent. I do not know about those opposite, but I think we should all be really proud of those figures.
Today, also, we have the release of the latest figures for the number of people receiving unemployment benefits through Centrelink. They showed that last month there was another drop of 175, or more than 21/2 per cent in the number of people registered for those benefits. In fact, over the last year, the number of Canberrans registered for Jobseeker benefits has fallen by 1,070, or 15 per cent, to just 6,258. In other words, our policies have worked. There is no doubt about that. Our policies of business incentive, of creating the right climate for business growth, have produced very real dividends for Canberra.
We have produced a vibrant economy in which businesses are actually employing. All major surveys, from the ANZ job advertisement series through to the Yellow Pages index and Morgan and Banks surveys, are all showing that the majority of businesses are keen and planning to take on more staff. That is something that I am really proud to put on the record in our last question time this year. We set out to create jobs and over the time we have been in government,11,900 new jobs in net terms have been created. That is a serious win for this Government.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, on 10 November 1997, the Chief Minister was interviewed by the Australian Federal Police in relation to the failed hospital implosion. In that interview, in response to the question, "How far does your involvement go in the tendering process?" the Chief Minister said:
Remember, it's very important, I'm actually not the Minister responsible. I don't run Totalcare, Trevor Kaine is the responsible Minister. But I'm the leader and therefore I wear it - whatever happens. But the Minister responsible is the day to day person who would get that sort of information. It doesn't actually run through my office at all.
The counsel assisting the coroner said:
... the assertions by Mrs Carnell, Mr Wearing and Mr Walker, contrary to the objective evidence that the project was the responsibility of Mr Kaine, are consistent with attempts by those persons to distance the Chief Minister, her office and her department from the actions taken by them in directing the project, particularly the public events aspects.
The coroner said:
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