This week Chief Minister Kate Carnell can take a bow. The grass passed the test. The Bruce Stadium was booked out. And yesterday the impartial umpire, the Australian Bureau of Statistics brought down its National Accounts. They showed that the ACT is doing better economically than any other state or territory.
The ACT economy has grown 11.8 per cent over the past year. Next were Victoria and NSW on 5.7 per cent. The ABS has warned there might be some aberrations for accrual accounting. Nonetheless, it shows the underlying reality that the ACT is doing well economically.
The figures also reveal that private-sector investment growth of 29 per cent in the year to June 2000.
Moreover, no longer is it the case of the figure coming off a low base after the horrors of Keating-Howard Canberra-bashing.
The figures are instructive in the face of the Melbourne demonstations against the so-called inequality generated by globalisation and privatisation. With the private sector taking a greater proportion of economic activity, there is no evidence of greater inequality or a band of rich living off a pool of unemployed. To the contrary, the ACT has decreasing unemployment. It is now at 4.6 per cent – the lowest in the land.
Explanations are manifold. Governments always like to take all the credit when things go well and shift the blame to “”external factors” when things go badly.
In the case of the ACT we have seen a huge bounce back after our main industry – public administration — copped a major blow. Industrial-belt towns that copped those sorts of blows have often wallowed in despair of inactivity and unemployment. That the ACT did not can be put down to several things. The education and versatility of its people are important. Well-educated seize opportunities. In the case of the ACT, many people have created their own employment after public-sector jobs – both federal and territory – were axed. They created their revolving doors.
Bear in mind that a year or so ago many people derided this theory. At that time the ACT economy was showing moderate to good growth and activity, as against the present excellent figures. The deriders argued that the only reason the ACT was doing well was because it was riding on public-sector pay-out packages. We can now assume that those pay-out packages have been wisely invested in wealth generating activities.
Carnell can claim a great deal of credit for creating this environment. Other sates and territories have not done as well. People have not flocked with their money to sunny Queensland or the new Intelligent Isle.
A significant factor has been fiscal discipline. People might bemoan what they see as higher taxes and charges and fewer services. In fact, taxes have been going down and charges have been going up. (People are being required to pay for what they use.) In the past half decade people in the ACT have been getting more of their wealth in their own pockets to spend as they want rather than have the government collect and spend it for them. People tend to be better judges of what money should be spent on than governments and they tend to spend it more efficiently.
So you would think on that base, Carnell would have few electoral difficulties. No so. Voters do not act on the economy alone, despite the Clinton campaigners’ slogan of “”It’s the economy, stupid.” The economy is important, but other issues matter and translate into votes.
Carnell faces the George H. Bush difficulty. There we was at the end of the Gulf war in 1991 with an astonishing 90 per cent approval rating. But the election was more than a year away. Like the US, the ACT has a fixed term. The next election is on the third Saturday in October. By then the glory of the Olympics will be over. Carnell is likely to have done reasonably well out of the Olympics for the ACT. The highway is built. There will be tourist spin-offs. But they will be past.
To a lesser extent she faces the Jeff Kennett difficulty. The voters recognised his ability in dealing with economic matters, as they do Carnell’s. They also see a fairly dull Labor Opposition which does not especially deserve Government. They feel they can vote against the incumbent to punish the Government, without necessarily changing it.
Then there is bad luck and bad management: implosion, futsal and implosion.
The trouble for Carnell, is that the good work on the economic front is not recognised and does not translate into votes (especially if it is gained by fiscal discipline). She will get no thanks for the good work.
Maybe, therefore, she might be one of those rare politicians who goes one their own terms in their own time rather than be tipped out by the voters or party. Say, sometime after the federation celebrations next year, about six to eight months before the election.