Page 1747 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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(3) requests that the Speaker:
(a) write to the Leader of the Opposition seeking his support for the Statement of Commitment to Canberra; and
(b) ask that he respond in writing to the Assembly on his intentions on the Federal public service including any current plans to relocate departments, agencies or other Canberra based entities outside of the ACT.
In the lead-up to the 1996 federal election, the Liberals said they would cut 2,500 jobs out of the commonwealth. After winning office, more than 30,000 public servants lost their jobs. The 30,000 jobs cut was a king hit to Canberra. It affected not just public servants and their families. In 1996 I owned a business here in Canberra. I saw people with small businesses losing their jobs and I saw people going broke.
But it is not just my personal observations witnessing the pain and anguish of the people I met and talked with; the statistics also tell the story. $25,000 was slashed from the price of the average Canberra home in an era when house prices were much lower than they are today. There was an increased ACT unemployment rate by one percentage point and increased personal bankruptcies in the ACT by around 100 bankruptcies per year.
The erosion of value of the family home—the primary financial nest egg for most Australian families—the loss of a job, difficulties in finding new employment in a depressed economy, and the shame and personal humiliation of bankruptcy were the fruit of this heartless policy. It took years for our local economy to recover but the pain and loss caused to Canberra families by the hardline ideologues of the Liberal Party have left deep scars. No Canberran who remembers those times would ever want the same treatment again.
Canberra eventually recovered from the Liberal’s slash and burn in 1996, administered under the Howard regime Mr Abbott served in. The cuts Mr Abbott is now proposing to the public service in Canberra are much more extreme than the Liberal’s cuts in 1996. It took 10 years of ACT Labor government to get our economy back in shape. Canberra now enjoys a vibrant forward-looking economy built on not only the hard work of commonwealth and ACT public servants, but also our innovative business sector—from major corporations to family-run businesses—and our education sector, with our high-performance schools and top universities.
Canberra people have the same hopes and aspirations as any other Australians: to enjoy their family life and friends, have a home and a job, see their kids grow up healthy, get a good education and have job opportunities. As much as Mr Abbott might like to demonise Canberra and see it as the magic pudding to plunder to sooth all his political woes, the real city of Canberra and the people who live here are not the Canberra of his, or the press gallery’s, imagination.
The families who make up the city of Canberra are Australians who are here for many reasons, but mostly because it is a great Australian city and they love the place. Many
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