Page 966 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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What does this mean? Does it mean that we should have a “can’t-do” culture in the public service? Do we have to go back to a 19th century style public service driven by process, one that says, “We can’t do that unless there is a form to fill out”? Maybe that explains why the Stanhope Labor government has squandered the $450 million worth of money, left in the bank by the previous Liberal government, by employing battalions of more public servants—public servants he did not really know had been employed, until April, when he expressed genuine surprise that there were some 2,500 extra public servants unaccounted for. He did not quite know how that had occurred.
That is not responsible government at all. So we now have a fatter public service against the backdrop of library, school and shopfront closures—slash services to the community and grossly increase taxes and charges. We dealt yesterday with the issue of shopfronts: “There are not going to be banks of computers; there are going to be shopfronts staffed by actual people.” What happened to the shopfronts? What happens now when you have to register your car? How long does that take? It takes an entire lunch hour. You have to go out to Dickson. What happened to that great little shopfront over the road there? It is not even a bank of computers.
Ms Porter: Just send your form in.
MR STEFANIAK: Some people cannot, Ms Porter. It is not even a bank of computers—nothing, zippo.
Finally, let me come back to Mr Stanhope’s concession about Canberra “ticking over”. The previous Liberal government did more, much more, to keep Canberra ticking over. The previous Liberal government left a buoyant economy and a thriving business sector after seven years where it had to pick up the pieces from a disastrous Labor government, just like we are going to have to do.
The previous Liberal government reduced waiting lists in the hospitals. The previous Liberal government put Canberra on the international business and tourism stage. The previous Liberal government was able to mow the grass and do simple things like that that people want so much in our community and that this government seems incapable of doing. The previous Liberal government was even able to keep graffiti under control.
Ms Porter: Graffiti! I didn’t think you’d mention graffiti.
MR STEFANIAK: And the previous Liberal government left hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank for the Stanhope Labor government—only for the Stanhope Labor government to squander it. Ms Porter interjected. Yes, we had graffiti squads that would go out and take it off pretty well as soon as it was there—very, very different from what you lot are doing.
The current Stanhope Labor government will not leave Canberra ticking over—because the Stanhope Labor government’s batteries went flat a long time ago. The Stanhope Labor government is a government of words; it is not a government of action. It is a government that has all its priorities wrong. It is a government that does not live up to Mr Stanhope’s very noble 2001 code of good government. It is a
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