Page 4362 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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We have seen employment growth of 3.3 per cent in the past year, the strongest in the nation. There are now 8,600 job vacancies in the territory. We now have more job vacancies at 8,600 than we have people looking for work at 8,400. This is the only jurisdiction in Australia where we have more job vacancies than unemployed people.
New housing finance commitments grew by 4.1 per cent in the territory but they fell five per cent nationally. People are moving to Canberra to take up these employment opportunities. The ACT government’s abolition of stamp duty for first homebuyers is having a very positive impact on these results and, indeed, on the broader housing market.
Our economy is outperforming Australia on a range of economic and social measures, and the outlook is for continued strong growth, job vacancies being a very strong early indicator of the future strength of our labour market.
MR GUPTA: Chief Minister, what action is the government taking to ensure continued economic diversification and growth?
MR BARR: Earlier this week, KPMG noted that the ACT was the most resilient jurisdiction in Australia to economic, social and community shocks. We have a strong public sector base and the government is building on that by taking decisive policy action to diversify our economy. We were very pleased to welcome nearly 5½ million visitors to our city in 2018-19, which generated $2.82 billion for our local economy.
Our continued efforts to make it cheaper and easier to get to Canberra, to attract new domestic and international visitors through domestic and international flights and to promote Canberra as a diverse and attractive destination are clearly bearing fruit for our city’s tourism industry. This is also stimulating record investment in tourism infrastructure, with new hotels, restaurants, bars and the like establishing and growing, resulting in more new jobs for Canberrans.
Beyond tourism, the government continues to invest in Canberra as an innovation and knowledge leader. We account for around 1.6 per cent of Australia’s population but we are now delivering 16 per cent—10 times our population share—of the nation’s research and development exports. That is testament to the strength of our knowledge economy.
International education exports rose from $555 million in 2014 to over $1 billion in 2018—an increase of 81 per cent—and we continue to attract new education investment, as we have seen at the ANU, the University of Canberra and through the new UNSW Canberra campus proposal. Through study Canberra and our international engagement strategy, we continue to diversify our international student base with a particular focus on attracting enrolments from places like India, Indonesia and Malaysia. (Time expired.)
MR PETTERSSON: Chief Minister, what does this performance mean for our city’s infrastructure requirements?
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