Page 236 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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on the faults in this Government, and I will hand over to my colleagues.
MR MOORE (4.17): Mr Speaker, I am going to make a very brief statement about morale. I have been speaking to a number of teachers and teachers' representatives and I have been speaking to some nurses and nurses' representatives in the last little while. One of the things that is of most concern to them is morale. Whilst the cuts need to be made in certain areas, what is happening is that they feel vulnerable, their morale is dropping and their ability to perform their own functions now is terribly impaired. Why would teachers who are going to operate in classrooms continue to try to give the sort of dedicated service that they have been giving over the last 10, 12 or 15 years if they realise that basically what is in store for them is a major cut? From the attitudes that have been expressed by the Chief Minister in the press and through his own words on radio, he has recognised that because education and health and urban services are major areas of the budget they are going to have to suffer major cuts.
So if we look at a quarter of the $100m we are looking at $25m. That means we are looking at some 700 or 800 teachers losing their jobs. What does that mean in reality for morale? What teachers in the public sector can look forward to, without any increase in salary, are, of course, much greater class sizes. They can also look to a situation where parents, who have become most concerned about the quality of education as the classes grow larger, will move their children into a private education system which will cost them much more. What is going to happen is that the costs to the concerned people of Canberra will be far greater than if this Government was prepared to raise a levy perhaps, or a form of tax. Many forms of taxes have already been suggested that could be implemented.
I hope that as well as the razor gang the Chief Minister will also be looking forward to methods of raising money within the ACT Administration. If they are talking about cutting 3,000 positions - and I accept that they will not just be people fired - that, at a quick calculation, accounts for some $90m. In other words, the jobs are going to account for the full set of cuts to the ACT Administration. People will see their jobs cut or be worrying and wondering what sort of positions will be cut, wondering what sort of work they will be able to do, wondering what is going to go on. Will their work conditions go down? At the same time they will be watching the private sector increase its work conditions and increase the situation where they can make more money. The Government will be making sure that it is that same private sector that has the greatest say as to where the money is going to be cut, where the money is going to be redirected - and we have heard suggestions today that it will be redirected into the private sector. This is the sort of worry that I have.
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