Page 2261 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012

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Ms Gallagher as Chief Minister has come in here begging the members of this place to give her some sort of imprimatur so that she can go up to her federal colleagues and say, “Geez, I don’t really want to do this, but the Assembly told me I had to stand up on their behalf for commonwealth public servants in the ACT.” Why would a Chief Minister of a jurisdiction make that statement or demand such an imprimatur? Why? Because she does not have the courage to do it herself, to stand up. We will give her leave to speak again. Stand up and denounce—use the word “denounce”—the cuts to the federal public service. She will not do it.

The motion goes on to note:

(d) Commonwealth public servants in Canberra are often a particular target for “Canberra bashing”; and

(e) Commonwealth public servants are experiencing significant uncertainty as job losses occur in many departments and agencies;

Mr Seselja’s motion goes on to affirm the role of the commonwealth public service in Canberra. It is what we are here for. And it is interesting that Ms Gallagher says, “But the Prime Minister really loves Canberra because she gave this great speech on the birthday where she affirmed her love.” In that speech the Prime Minister said:

And today I want to go further by making a formal and public commitment on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia to the role and significance of Canberra in the life of our nation. …

I commit to Canberra remaining the heart of the Australian Public Service and the primary location of government departments and agencies.

But we know that is not true. The heart of the public service has just been given a bypass by federal Labor. Over three years the estimates are that something like 12,000 jobs will go. And if you look at pages 672, 673 and 674 of federal budget paper No 1—(Time expired.)

MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (4.31): I find the motion rather interesting in the sense that we have had it put forward by the Canberra Liberals this afternoon. Of course, we know that the federal Liberal Party has also proposed significant cuts. If Mr Hockey’s interview from the 7.30 report last night is anything to go by, he is still talking about 20,000 jobs, not just from the public service but 20,000 jobs from Canberra, which I think would be, as we know, a complete and utter disaster. Nevertheless the Greens certainly do welcome the opportunity to talk about such an important issue and, of course, it is incredibly important for the prosperity of Canberra.

The first point to make is that only the Greens have recognised the public service that public servants do. We did have a bit from Mr Seselja earlier, but I guess it is really

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