Page 987 - Week 03 - Thursday, 28 February 2013
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the ACT government and, most importantly by the federal government, have a significant impact on the territory’s economy. You do not just need take just my word for this, though, Mr Assistant Speaker. Our incumbent Liberal Senator, Gary Humphries, said as much earlier this month:
We need to make sure we look after the national interest, but there is no area more affected by decisions made by federal governments than the national capital.
These are very sensible words. It is a pity that his colleagues do not appear to share his views.
Indeed, there is a significant threat looming to the territory economy, and that is the election of an Abbott government. We hear claims repeatedly from the federal shadow treasurer, Mr Hockey, and the Leader of the Opposition that there are 20,000 more public servants now than when John Howard left office. There are certainly more public servants employed—the economy and the country have grown in that period. Mr Hockey proudly claims he will sack every one of the 20,000 extra public servants. When interviewed by our own Chris Uhlmann, a fairly highly regarded journalist in Canberra, on the 7.30 Report last May, Mr Hockey said, “We will cut the public service.” Mr Uhlmann asked, “By 20,000?” Mr Hockey said, “We’ve already said that.”
Mr Assistant Speaker, to see the importance of supporting jobs look no further than the job cuts of the Howard government and the impact on this city in the period 1996 to 1998. The impact at that time on that economy was to slash $25,000 from the value of the average Canberra home. This, of course, was an era pre-GST, pre-first home owner grant price and when house prices were much lower than they are today, so that was a very significant impact. The increase in the territory’s unemployment rate was by one full percentage point and the increase in personal bankruptcies in the territory was over 100 per cent per year. The plans of Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey would similarly devastate this city’s economy.
Many Canberrans will remember this pain and will have no desire to see those conditions repeated. There is no desire to see retail trade, housing and construction, hospitality—indeed, all of our thriving services sectors—suffer needlessly. There is no desire to see more Canberrans out of work and more businesses struggling to pay the bills. There is no desire to see people leaving town to look for work and our property market struggling, both of which would certainly impact on the territory’s revenues and make it more challenging to continue to provide important services to the community.
This is the reality our city faces under an Abbott government. Such is the extent of the concern about this, even within the Liberal Party itself, that Senator Humphries was touting publicly and frequently to anyone who would listen that only a Senate veteran such as himself could persuade his federal colleagues not to cut this deep and this hard.
This is bad enough, Mr Assistant Speaker, but it does not end there. We hear word now that those public servants left in employment in the territory would be forcibly relocated to other parts of the country. Just a few weeks ago we heard the developing
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