Shadow Minister Media Releases
Another Report Says NSW Economy Worst In Australia (11/01/2010)
CommSec’s State of the States Report released today ranks New South Wales last in key economic indicators.
“’The State of the States’ Report is further confirmation of what the Liberal/Nationals have been saying for years now – that the NSW Labor Government is not business friendly and is not economically responsible,” Shadow Minister for Small Business Don Page said.
New South Wales ranked last in key economic indicators including unemployment, economic growth, construction and new home starts.
“NSW has the lowest growth, highest unemployment and lowest level of new dwellings across Australia. This impacts on small and medium businesses who are struggling to compete with interstate counterparts,” Mr Page said.
“I find it most disturbing that NSW ranks last in the number of building starts with the September quarter dropping to 37 per cent below the decade average. This is despite the NSW Government cutting stamp duty from 1 July 2009 by 50% on newly constructed dwellings valued at less than $600,000,” Mr Page said.
“The NSW Labor Government were extremely reluctant to extend this program beyond 31 December 2009, only deciding to extend it to 30 June 2010 at the eleventh hour,” he said.
The December Sensis Business Index also confirmed that the lowest level of confidence for any State or Territory Government continues in New South Wales.
“Small and medium businesses have every justification for their lack of confidence in this broken NSW Labor Government,” Mr Page said.
“The NSW Labor Government are repeatedly being given hard evidence that they are over taxing and over regulating the engine room of the NSW economy. Yet they continue to refuse to do anything positive to turn the situation around.
“The current NSW Labor Government is too inexperienced and too incompetent to fix the enormous problems they have created in the NSW economy,” Mr Page said.
Mr Page said the NSW Coalition had proposed at least three policy measures to be implemented:- reduce payroll tax by 15%; halve the waiting time for major infrastructure development approvals; and for Government to pay their bills to businesses within 30 days.
“After 15 years of Labor a broken NSW Government is not capable of fixing the enormous problems they have created through their own failure and incompetence,” Mr Page said.
