Page 1927 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2017
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A growing population is also helping boost retail trade for Canberra’s small businesses and local industries. At 3.1 per cent, our growth in retail trade over the last 12 months is again among the strongest in the country, and has now been a rolling positive across a 33-month period.
The diversification of Canberra’s economy continues to gather pace, which is fortunate considering the Commonwealth Government has maintained its wage freeze on the Australian Public Service in the latest federal Budget.
The ACT’s service exports have grown by more than 65 per cent since 2010-11, to now reach $1.7 billion a year. Our education sector has been the standout success, bringing in $508 million last year or just under a third of our total service exports. Our local industries are thriving, which means more good jobs for Canberrans—the higher education sector alone now supports about 16,000 jobs across the ACT.
This Government has never lost sight of the importance of creating and maintaining good jobs for Canberrans, and this will continue to be at the centre of everything we do in the years to come.
A strong balance sheet goes hand-in-hand with a strong economy to keep our city growing. That is why this Budget continues our clear and steady path back to balance from the depths of the combined Commonwealth and Mr Fluffy effect on the Territory budget of some years ago.
I acknowledge it has been a long climb—a deficit of $479 million in 2014-15 has shrunk to just $73.9 million in 2016-17, which represents a further improvement on the $119 million projected deficit at the time of the 2016-17 Budget Review.
As we have been forecasting since 2015, the Territory is on track to return to balance in 2018-19. Stronger surpluses in the years beyond allow us to make further investments in our city.
I have said this before but it bears repeating this afternoon: we do not believe in delivering surpluses for their own sake. Instead, we are strengthening the Territory’s finances so that we can meet the community’s needs today while investing more for tomorrow.
That is our fiscal plan: making the right investments to renew our city, while sticking to this clear path of budget balance. That is how the Government will deliver a stronger budget and an even better Canberra.
Getting the basics right
Adding another eight suburbs worth of people to our city—the equivalent of Weston Creek—over the next four years means there is a lot of work to do.
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