Page 3461 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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Maxine McKew re-elected? Who is going to pay for that? I expect that Canberrans will pay for that. Canberrans will pay for that through higher taxes. Canberrans will pay for that through the loss of jobs, as they desperately seek savings. And we have seen it.
They were going to reduce the efficiency dividend. They are going to keep it. We have been told time and time again—we used to get told by Kate Lundy—that that efficiency dividend meant job cuts. We have not seen any evidence that they are able to actually manage efficiently. Presumably it will mean job cuts. Presumably it will. But only one party has guaranteed that public servants in the ACT will not be sacked. Only one party has guaranteed that.
The Labor Party’s record, even in good fiscal times, was that they sacked public servants. Imagine what it will be like, having put the budget into serious deficit, having promised to bring it out in a couple of years, having splashed election bribes right around the country. We are not getting $2.1 billion for a rail line in the ACT. Only marginal Labor seats get the $2.1 billion.
But someone is going to pay. I guarantee it will be the people of the ACT who will pay for that if we see a re-elected Gillard-Rudd-Swan-Shorten government. Who knows who will be the Prime Minister? But we know that the people of the ACT will pay.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (10.34): I thank Ms Porter for the motion. It is a very important motion, particularly, of course, as we focus on the potential outcomes of the election on Saturday with the leader of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, unblinking in his promise to cut $24 billion of general outlays from the commonwealth government. Although we believe there is quite a detailed analysis, not even the Liberal Party know how many jobs will be cut, but I think Mr Abbott himself has conceded that it will result in 12,000 in cuts over two years. He goes on to say, almost shamelessly: “Don’t worry about it. It will be a 12,000 reduction through natural attrition.”
We have just seen some mighty attempts—feeble, certainly, in content but loud in message—around the Liberal Party’s role in the 1996 slashing of the public sector. I think there may already have been some attention drawn to Mr Smyth’s significant role as a member of the Howard party room in 1996—
Mr Smyth: What did your boss say in 1996?
Mr Seselja: Why did you get sacked in 1996? I mean, normally it’s just departmental heads that are sacked for political reasons.
MR STANHOPE: Actually, I wear it as a badge of honour that I was singled out by John Howard as somebody that would actually be deemed excess to requirements. There is probably an interesting story there, that those of us that were invited not to return to work—I think there were nine of us—
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