Page 3460 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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How was the ACT doing in the years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005? How was the unemployment rate tracking? How was growth in the ACT? It was booming under a commonwealth government that was investing. But it was investing on the back of sustainable economic management. The reality is that that has been blown out of the water. The reality is that three years of Labor have turned a $20 billion surplus into a $57 billion deficit.
How are you going to do that, when you splash money around marginal seats, on marginal seat bribes, in an election and you say you are going to get the budget back into surplus? I have not heard Kate Lundy rule out sacking public servants. I have not heard Julia Gillard rule out sacking public servants. They will sack public servants. There will not be any other way.
When you spend so much money in other places and you say you are going to get the budget back into surplus, there are two ways you can go. You can find the savings elsewhere, that is, in Canberra, or you can raise taxes. And no doubt there will be a good mix of both. There will be a good mix of both under the Labor Party.
But we need to address the lies. And it does go to this claim of the Greens that they can somehow be a third force and a voice of reason. They have aligned themselves with the Labor Party on this. They have been silent on the billions in savings that the Labor Party has said they will find. The Labor Party has not actually said where they are going to find those savings in Canberra.
The IT industry will be decimated through their policies. They are going to pull money out of that fund. What is that going to mean for both public and private sector operators in the IT industry? They are already losing their jobs. But we have heard silence on that, absolute silence.
It goes to integrity. Only one party has said the deficit is so large that we will make savings but what we will do is: we will guarantee that no-one is forced out of their job. And I guarantee you this: if the coalition comes in and makes the savings and stimulates the economy, as it always does, and gets the budget back into surplus, the ACT will see growth in the public service, as we did last time. We will see growth in our economy. We will see the unemployment rate in the ACT going down. That was the legacy last time. That was the legacy in 2006 and 2007.
The Chief Minister, who joined us at a time when the ACT was doing so well, not only cheered on Kevin Rudd for coming in with his meataxe but said that he had to do it; he had to start swinging the meataxe. He was encouraging him to do more. He was encouraging him to cut more because of the apparent inflation bogy, the manufactured inflation bogy. But people will remember this.
What the Labor Party will not be able to escape is that Julia Gillard is not guaranteeing that she will not cut jobs in the public service. And I would ask members of the press gallery to put that question to Ms Gillard, to put that question to Senator Kate Lundy, to put that question to the Labor candidates for the seats of Canberra and Fraser. Put that question. How are they going to pay for the $2.1 billion bribe to get
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