Page 2451 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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Our fiscal discipline has supported the ACT’s economy, and has enabled our government to meet its people’s needs even during an unprecedented global financial crisis. We have made significant efficiency savings and reduced the cost of administration. But we have done it in a measured way. Being prudent means having to make at times difficult decisions and at times unpopular decisions, but again leaders have to do just that.
These savings have been reinvested into priority areas for our community—our schools, our hospitals, our infrastructure. We will continue to work to improve services and community facilities to ensure our city is a good and safe place to live.
This government has demonstrated that it can make the hard decisions necessary to achieve better outcomes for the territory. It was this government that decided to put the territory’s finances on a sustainable footing, beginning with a reform process in the 2006-07 budget. That reform, which is still delivering savings, maintained our capacity to invest in physical and social infrastructure.
The economic indicators speak for themselves. The ACT has one of the strongest economies in the country, with the highest economic growth, the second lowest unemployment rate and the second highest labour participation rate, at about 73 per cent.
A strong budgetary and economic performance is no fluke. We have worked hard on it, and the strength of our performance has been recognised. Indeed, if you look at CommSec, in the State of the states report, it found that while the ACT economy may be small, effectively all engines of growth are firing, with home building, new mortgages and population growth all above decade averages and ahead of other states and territories. In April this year it said:
… in January 2011, the ACT was the standout economy … And it is clear it remains at the top of the tree.
Similarly, in confirming the territory’s credit rating, Standard & Poor’s noted:
The ACT government’s management is a very positive ratings factor.
It must have hurt when you read that, Mr Smyth, did it? The report continued:
In 2009, in response to the economic slowdown and resulting drop in revenue, the ACT revised its fiscal strategy, with a primary focus on returning the territory’s operating position to balance by fiscal 2016.
Again, that must have hurt.
The government demonstrates and enacts its leadership through the long-term direction provided by the Canberra plan and the underlying hierarchy of the supporting strategic plan. A strong strategic planning system is central to effective leadership. To lead, you have to know where you want to go in the short term and the longer term. This is perhaps one of the larger differences between the government and the members that sit in the critics circle opposite.
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