Now more than ever, Canberrans need an ACT Government that has a track record of creating and protecting local jobs.
Our city is facing a huge economic challenge in the years ahead. The nation is in recession, and there will be ongoing pressure on our employment market.
ACT Labor is, and will always be, the party of working people in Canberra and our priority if re-elected will be to continue creating local jobs and protecting the jobs we have.
On Labour Day, ACT Labor reaffirms our support for Canberrans in the workforce.
Over this term, we implemented the secure local jobs code to ensure that any company that wishes to work with the ACT Government has to treat their employees fairly.
We directly employed hard working school cleaners to get them off dodgy contracts and into secure, stable and WHS-compliant employment.
During the pandemic, we did not delay wage increases to our own non-executive workforce, including our teachers, nurses, cleaners and municipal workers, unlike many other Governments around Australia –including the NSW and Commonwealth Liberal Governments.
We also kept our promise to grow the ACT public service during the term, to keep providing the services a growing city needs.
Recently, the Jobs for Canberrans fund ensured that over 500 ACT families that weren’t eligible for Commonwealth wage subsidy schemes were supported during COVID-19 with secure contract jobs in the ACT public service.
We have made this same commitment in 2020 - protecting thousands of jobs by growing the ACT public service. We will protect and create more jobs in health, education, municipal services, community services and emergency services.
ACT Labor has also guaranteed that CIT, ACTION, the Land Titles office and government-owned enterprises like ICON and ActewAGL will remain in public hands to protect jobs.
We’ve created and protected Canberra jobs through good times and bad, and we want to keep working every day to protect the health and livelihoods of our community.
ACT Labor’s full Job Protection Commitment as available at actlabor.org.au