Page 1409 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I have never at any stage said that the Federal Government would not overall be cutting jobs. What I have said is that they would be maintaining their employment at roughly the same level. I expect that the Commonwealth will undertake the same sort of process of efficiency that we have undertaken in the Territory and that all other governments are also undertaking. Members will know well that I am on the record as opposing the massive removal of jobs from this Territory by the Commonwealth. I have done it in the past and I would do it again. However, members should also know that the ACT is not the only place where Commonwealth public servants are employed; they are employed throughout Australia. It is just not correct to say that all job losses will be occurring in this Territory. That is just not the case.
I have said that there would certainly not be the kind of wholesale transfer of departments out of the Territory that Dr Hewson was promising the citizens of this Territory before the last Federal election. I know that members opposite cringe at the memory of that, but it is the case. Who could ever forget Mr Reith's statement that he would turn Canberra into a ghost town? His proud boast as an election commitment to the people of Canberra was that he would turn it into a ghost town. If there were a sign that there would be jobs lost to the Territory, that is a matter that would concern me. However, we do not have evidence of the kind of wholesale slash and burn approach that was anticipated in some sections of the media prior to the Federal budget, and I am very grateful for that fact.
MRS CARNELL: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Chief Minister, if you do not think the loss of 352 jobs from the CSIRO is significant and you question whether they would be from the ACT, what about the 167 jobs that will be lost in Canberra specifically from such areas as the Australian Institute of Criminology, the National Gallery, the War Memorial, the National Film and Sound Archive, the National Library, the Science and Technology Centre, the NCPA, the Bureau of Statistics, the Therapeutic Goods Administration - and I could go on? Are you doubting that those jobs are in the ACT?
MS FOLLETT: What about the 3,000 jobs that Mr Kaine, in his time as Leader of the Opposition and in fact in government - - -
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: The Chief Minister has often refused to take questions on the basis that they are hypothetical. There is nothing more hypothetical than what she is putting forward now.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I notice that Mr Kaine has taken a point of order on his own members' interjections. That is a very interesting approach from members opposite. The fact is - and it is a fact - that Mr Kaine, while in government, supported by those of his colleagues who saw fit to support him, which was not very many, was proposing to cut 3,000 jobs out of the ACT Administration. There is no doubt about that. He is on the record.
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