Page 1126 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 3 May 2022

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video

---

them will struggle to do that, unless they move to Armidale, or wherever the Labor Party moves these jobs to.

Obviously, I will not support the amendment, because it is full of inaccuracies. It hides the fact that last time that the Labor Party were in government they cut 14,700 jobs by stealth. They embedded it in budgets and did not tell anyone. This is an anti-contractor policy. We in the Liberal Party support the APS. Let me say that the Canberra Liberals will never support job cuts to the APS. We will not. We always support a strong Australian public service.

Equally, we support the augmentation of that, the support of that, by a strong contractor workforce, which is in contrast to the view of those opposite. Shame on them for not standing up to a policy that will cut so many jobs. Do not listen to the rhetoric. They will have you believe that this is just transferring contractors over to public servants. It is not. If that is what the policy was, it would be a whole different debate, and I would not be standing here today. But that is not the policy. That is not what we are debating. What we are seeing here today is a cutting of jobs and, whether they are public servants or whether they are contractors, I would not be supporting it. This is cutting jobs. I do not support cutting jobs in Canberra. I do not want to see jobs cut in Canberra.

By opposing this motion today, by moving this disingenuous amendment, you are actually supporting job cuts in Canberra. That is the reality of the Labor Party policy, like it or not. There may be benefits in the region, in Centrelink somewhere or in the NDIA. Good; that is great. But the reality is that you are cutting $3 billion of jobs, with the bulk of that in Canberra. How can any of you support that? How can you walk out of this place and say that you support jobs in Canberra and that you support our economy?

The reality is that that is your rhetoric. The reality is that you do not, and we know that, because when we look at your government and what you deliver, it is a critical teacher shortage, a critical police shortage and violence that our nurses have to confront every day.

Question put:

That the amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

---

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video