Page 3805 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
(h) that the ACT is one of only two jurisdictions in Australia, and one of only 26 worldwide, to have a triple A stable credit rating from Standard and Poor’s;
(i) that there are about 212 000 people currently employed in the ACT, with nearly 5000 of these jobs having been created in the last four years alone;
(j) the more than 35 000 new jobs created in the ACT in the past decade, equating to almost 10 jobs per day for 10 years;
(k) that the ACT economy was worth $34.4 billion in 2012-2013, with our economy growing by almost $1 billion a year since 2000-2001;
(l) that the ACT has the best educated community in Australia, with the ACT leading the nation in NAPLAN results and Canberrans twice as likely to hold post-graduate qualifications than other Australians;
(m) the strong growth in the ACT’s knowledge economy industries in recent years, with more than 43 000 people now employed across the education, scientific and technical and ICT sectors, with more than 6000 new jobs created over the last decade;
(n) that Canberra’s higher education sector is growing strongly, with the sector currently employing about 45 000 people in the region, and educating about 40 000 students, one quarter of whom are from overseas;
(o) that the ACT’s tourism sector is generating around $1.8 billion in economic activity for our economy each year and employs around 17 000 people;
(p) that the ACT’s gross per capita income was $97 269 according to the 2012-2013 state accounts, which is nearly $40 000 more than the national per capita average of $57 441;
(q) that the ACT has a relatively even distribution of incomes compared to the national average as measured by the Gini coefficient, with the ACT measuring 0.373 and Australia 0.427, where a bigger number indicates more inequality;
(r) the strength of research and development in the ACT, with more than 8 per cent of Australian higher education institutional expenditure on R&D taking place in Canberra, and that as a portion of GDP Canberra’s rate of higher education R&D expenditure outstrips that in all other Australian jurisdictions by a factor greater than three;
(s) Canberra has a young population, with the largest age demographics being ages 0-14 followed by ages 25-34;
(t) that the ACT Government is investing in transformational infrastructure to boost the long-term productivity of the economy such as Capital Metro light rail and the Health Infrastructure Program;
(u) that the ACT Government is the only government in Australia to be reforming taxes by phasing out inefficient transaction taxes such as conveyance duty and duty on insurance;
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video