Page 3468 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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I would like to mention something from the ABC news website from 21 May this year. It said:
All three parties in the ACT Legislative Assembly are lining up to criticise Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott over his plans to prune the public service.
And it quoted Mr Seselja. Let us go to the quotes from Mr Seselja. It said:
Liberal Party Leader Mr Seselja has sent a letter to Tony Abbott and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urging them to stop “Canberra bashing”.
He says Mr Rudd treats Canberra with contempt and Mr Abbott is wrong to propose public service cuts.
“They shouldn’t use the ACT as a whipping boy for Federal politics,” he said.
Let us just go over that again. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Seselja, said that Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott should not be going about doing Canberra bashing. He said that Mr Rudd treats us with contempt but—let us be clear here—“Mr Abbott is wrong”. He said:
… Mr Abbott is wrong to propose public service cuts.
He said that the ACT should not be used as a whipping boy by the federal parties. Let us go back there. Is Mr Seselja still standing by that? He wrote to Mr Abbott to say: “Please don’t go through with these cuts. Don’t go through with these cuts because we know the massive impact it will have on the ACT.”
As we have heard from the Chief Minister, we know that Mr Smyth has a very good understanding of the 1996 cuts and the massive impact they had on the ACT. I would like to know where Mr Seselja and the Liberal Party are now standing on this issue. Are they still imploring Mr Abbott to not go ahead with these massive public sector cuts? Is that Mr Seselja’s stance today? Or has he changed his mind on that since 21 May? And if he does still stand by it, what has he been saying to Mr Humphries? Has he been urging Mr Humphries to do a little bit better than he has been doing to date? As I said earlier, Mr Hockey has just said: “Well, face up to it. This is the way it has to go.” And yesterday Mr Abbott was saying, “This could just be the beginning.”
What we actually need is better representation at the commonwealth level. We need someone who will argue for and actually influence what happens to the ACT. We know that Mr Humphries will not deliver that. Mr Hockey has told us, as I have just said again. The party he represents would subject the ACT to the same economic hardship we had back in 1996 and the years that followed. The Greens do not want that. A Greens senator for the ACT would prevent the coalition and Family First from having a majority in the Senate and ensure that such cuts could not occur.
As I said, the Greens are happy to support the motion. We agree that a strong and stable commonwealth public service is in the best interests of not only the ACT community but the Australian community.
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