Commonwealth spent double the amount of ACT government on COVID-19 support

The Commonwealth paid $2.1 billion to Canberra households and businesses through its support measures but the ACT government's entire fiscal response to the pandemic was $913 million in 2020.

But Chief Minister Andrew Barr rejected suggestions the ACT relied too heavily on the federal government, saying the territory did not have the capability to deliver cash directly to households or businesses.

Mr Barr will release an economic analysis of the major stimulus provided by the ACT government during the early stages of the pandemic later this month, after being pressed by fellow MLAs.

It came after an analysis of the 2020-21 territory budget concluded the territory government did not provide any major financial stimulus during the pandemic.

The Pegasus Economics report said the ACT instead relied on Commonwealth support.

Mr Barr has been pressed to release an analysis of the ACT's economic support measures by the Legislative Assembly's standing committee on public accounts.

The committee made the recommendation in a report on its inquiry into the recent ACT budget. The report was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.

As part of its inquiry, the committee grilled the treasurer in a hearing in February on the claim by Pegasus that the ACT did not provide any major stimulus. But Mr Barr called the report "an opinion".

"Clearly the Commonwealth has more policy levers and a budget that is 100 times larger than ours with which to deploy, as well as constitutional responsibility in certain areas that are beyond our remit," he said in the hearing.

"If Pegasus's argument was that we should have provided a wage subsidy scheme or we should have increased unemployment benefit or we should have eased income taxing, these are all things that sit with the Commonwealth."

A spokeswoman for Mr Barr said the government would provide the analysis of the support measures and this would be tabled during the next sitting week in April.

She confirmed the ACT government's fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic was about $913 million in 2020.

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Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the Morrison government gave more than $2.1 billion in economic support to Canberrans.

The $2.1 billion from the federal government included JobKeeper payments, the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement, CashFlow boost and household payments.

The spokeswoman defended the territory government's response by saying the ACT's spending as a portion of its gross state product was "broadly similar" to every other jurisdiction.

However, the ACT's portion of 2.23 per cent was lower than every other state or territory. The national average was 2.87 per cent. Tasmania had the highest at 4.18 per cent and Western Australia was the second lowest at 2.29 per cent.

The spokeswoman said the ACT did not have the same capacity as the Commonwealth to deliver economic support.

"The ACT government response is necessarily different to the Commonwealth's as we do not have the same policy levers to provide cash directly to households and businesses but provide stimulus through a number of recovery packages including waivers, freezing indexation on a range of a number of fees and charges and delivering shovel-ready infrastructure projects," she said.

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