Page 1697 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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our economy. As such, we will always do everything we can to provide the right support for our economy at the time that it is most needed. And the time for this support is now.
The commonwealth’s cuts certainly will hit our city hard. As I mentioned in my budget speech yesterday and have spoken about in this place over recent times, the cumulative impacts of the last two federal budgets certainly will have an impact on our future economic growth.
Of course, all governments face choices in the delivery of their annual budgets. This year the government could have taken an alternative approach. We could have sought to protect our own bottom line and forwarded a hospital pass like we received on to our community. We decided not to do that.
We could have taken the path that conservative state governments elsewhere in the country have done and sought to impose austerity measures to reduce essential health and education services, and we could have dramatically increased the unemployment rate in the territory. But we have decided not to do this.
We will not sit back and wait for the commonwealth’s cuts to lead to fewer operations and fewer beds in our hospitals. We will not sit back whilst the commonwealth throws people out of work. Instead we have taken a decision to invest in this community.
There are many initiatives that this budget has funded—initiatives that provide Canberrans with the range of services and facilities that they expect and deserve. I am sure that, during the course of this morning’s debate, my colleagues will elaborate in detail on the specific areas within their own portfolios and that are relevant to their own electorates.
I would like to spend some time, though, touching on what this budget does to support the economy more broadly and social cohesion in our community, and why this is so important.
The city’s economy is being impacted by the decisions of the largest employer and the largest contributor to economic growth. There is, of course, the direct hit that the territory budget takes from the commonwealth’s hospital pass. This totals $375 million over the forward estimates period.
In the 2014-15 fiscal year alone, the impact on our land program and the commonwealth walking away from the national health reform agreement hits our bottom line to the tune of around $80 million.
Further, there is a range of flow-on impacts that these cuts have. Fewer jobs and greater concern about job security flows right through our economy, causing households to limit consumption—and we have certainly seen that in terms of consumer confidence surveys and recent retail figures—causing business to delay hiring and investing, and has the capacity to lead to an overall reduction in confidence in the economy. When faced with this economic outlook, it is important for the territory government to respond proactively to support the economy.
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