Page 3480 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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I recall this happening very clearly last time, when the insecurity was palpable and the guilt by those still with their jobs was very real. This level of insecurity will not only touch the wellbeing of our community, it will drastically affect our economy. There is no doubt about it.
On the issue of our economy, these job cuts will also strangle the private sector, as we have just heard from Ms Burch. The economic food chain of the ACT, as you said, Mr Assistant Speaker, works from the public service down, and this multiplier effect, as you said, illustrates the great reliance that our economy has on the public sector. The ratio of public sector job cuts to private sector job losses is one to four. And many of those 12,000 lives I have previously talked about will be touched. The public sector is critical to the economy of the ACT, and all of us know that.
As you said this morning, Mr Assistant Speaker, the last time the Liberals cut the public service back in the 1990s, it had a devastating effect in Tuggeranong. How will Mr Smyth feel, walking down the road in his electorate in the months that follow an improbable Liberal victory, seeing small businesses close? How will Mr Doszpot feel?
I spoke of the effect these public sector job losses will have on the provision of healthcare in the ACT. Mr Hanson is not here to hear me reiterate these points but I would like to. Mr Abbott neglected health, as we all know, when he was the health minister. He stripped back funding and, given the chance, he will do it again in a flash. We are on the cusp of achieving historic national health reforms as we complete the first stage of an historic agreement on how to better fund and manage the growing health needs across the country.
Through the strength of the federal Labor government and its dedicated public service, the ACT has already made great gains, in the form of a new walk-in centre, extra subacute care, new operating theatres and extra elective surgery procedures. That is what has already been delivered through our strong commonwealth public service and our focused federal Labor government. And if the Labor government is returned federally, we will see a GP superclinic established in the ACT.
If Tony Abbott had his way, all of this would never have happened and these health reforms that we are eagerly awaiting would not even be given a chance to achieve what we know they can achieve. Mr Abbott will undo and undermine our health reforms, and the public service job cuts will do the rest.
I repeat: we must never forget the then health minister, Mr Abbott, cut $1 billion from public hospitals, enough to fund more than 1,000 beds, and froze GP training numbers. The Liberals love to decry the low number of GPs in the ACT and the lack of bulk-billing. Always look to the root cause, not at the symptom, the root cause being the lack of GPs caused by the freezing of GP training numbers way back then. Now he is proposing further deep health cuts, including eliminating GP superclinics. Just as we are on the cusp of getting our GP superclinics, he is proposing to cut them, which will hurt 400 communities and obviously cut the after-hours GP hotline.
We are going to get a very sick health system if Mr Abbott has his way. The ACT is also going to get a very sick economy if Mr Abbot has his way. And those opposite
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