Page 5893 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
We will give them leave to speak again, for them to stand up and say, “We condemn the cuts.” Let us be clear about this—no semantics, no syntax, no definition debates here. Stand up and say, “We condemn the cuts.” We have said it. It does not matter what political party it is, the Canberra Liberals will always stand up for Canberra jobs. Today I am urging the Labor Party and the Greens to do the same. Vote for my motion—or move amendments that condemn the Labor Party. But you will not. You will water it down or you will walk away from it, because you do not believe in it. You do not believe in condemning the Labor Party or holding them to account. You will not denounce the federal Labor scheme to sack Canberrans.
Mr Hargreaves: Point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: One moment, Mr Smyth. Stop the clocks, thank you.
Mr Hargreaves: My point of order, Mr Speaker, is that Mr Smyth is not addressing himself to the amendment; he is just addressing himself to the main motion. I ask you to bring him back to the amendment proposed by Ms Hunter.
MR SPEAKER: At this stage there is no point of order, but I will keep an eye on it. Mr Smyth, if we can keep focused, thank you.
MR SMYTH: Ms Gallagher talks about the GFC and says there is no acknowledgement of the GFC. We all acknowledge the GFC. But where is the acknowledgement from Ms Gallagher that the Howard government inherited almost $100 billion of debt? It inherited deficits, not surpluses, but was able to steer its way through things like the Asian meltdown in 1997, the HIH collapse, the Ansett collapse and a string of other financial disasters. It was still able to steer this country to money in the bank and a string of surpluses that no-one will ever match.
When was the Labor Party’s last surplus? It was 1989. There will not be a surplus because of these cuts. These are the magic pudding cuts: “We’re going to cut half a billion dollars this year and that will give us a $1½ billion surplus next year.” That is great maths. We all look forward to that surplus—because it is illusory. I do not think any economic commentator in the country accepts—
Mr Coe: It is seasonally adjusted!
MR SMYTH: Perhaps they are using seasonally adjusted figures instead of trends—quite true, Mr Coe.
Mr Seselja: It is Labor-government adjusted.
MR SMYTH: This is Labor-government adjusted.
This is a very simple motion, and the amendment should not be supported. The Assembly thought Liberal cuts were worthy of condemnation and denouncement in August, but Labor Party cuts are apparently not worthy of similar denouncement. I find that extraordinary. That is simply hypocrisy. We will not be supporting the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video