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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1407 ..

Mr Kaine: Twenty thousand redundancies. I do not know whether that is a reduction or not.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Kaine, this is the misrepresentation that is there. Yes, there were redundancies; yes, there were restructurings in the Commonwealth Public Service. But the number of public servants went up, not down. That is the truth. That is the record of the Labor Government. We have nothing to apologise for, Mrs Carnell, because our record is one of a public service which grew. The Labor Party believes in the role of the Public Service. The Labor Party believes that the Public Service can actually contribute constructively to society, and you do not. The reality is that the Liberal Party stands for fewer public servants, fewer jobs in Canberra in the Public Service. The Labor Party grew the Public Service, because we believe in the role of the public sector. We were providing programs, Kate Carnell, that made Australia a better place to live in. The Liberal Party is dismantling those programs. That is the truth.

Families will be worse off as a result of this Federal budget, due to cuts in pharmaceutical benefits, child-care places, and public housing. There is increased funding for aged and disability services in this budget, but not as much as they cut last year. While they are boasting about their so-called savings initiative, which will give $450 to someone who has $60,000 in the bank, in reality that is not going to help low-income people, that is not going to help ordinary families. That is going to help people with lots of wealth already. That is going to help people who have money in the bank already. It is not going to help people who are struggling, and they are going to be struggling even more with fewer child-care places, with less funding for public housing, with changes to pharmaceutical benefits, et cetera.

Mr Speaker, this is not a good budget for Canberra, because of the attacks on jobs, because of the attacks on capital works spending, because of the attacks on the general standard of living of Canberrans. Canberrans, and Australians, have a right to expect more of their Federal government than this Government has delivered, and they have a right to expect more of the ACT Government than a full on, wide-eyed enthusiastic sell job from the Chief Minister.

Mr Berry: Sycophantic, actually.

MR WHITECROSS: Sycophantic, maybe.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.02), in reply: Mr Speaker, I am fascinated with the comments Mr Whitecross made - I suppose fascinated is an overstatement, really. The comments he made that I believed the Federal budget was going to improve the economy in the ACT are simply not right. What I said was that it would improve the economy in Australia, and I believe that that will inevitably flow on to the ACT.

Ms McRae: Yes, yes, yes, like we have seen already.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

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