Page 1750 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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Dr Bourke: Point of order.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Gentleman): Mr Hanson, withdraw.
MR HANSON: I withdraw. I have got enough that I do not need to—I think I have made the point pretty clearly; I do not need to say the word. When they read that in the Canberra Times, reported this morning, it would appear, wouldn’t it, that what they are trying to accuse a government that may come in of, and they clearly fear the fact that the Liberals are going to win the election—something that they fear sometime in the future might occur is actually being done right now by their party. That was in the six months leading up to December.
Anybody who lives in this town would have friends in the public service, in the federal public service. They would know full well that the job cuts, the redundancies, the cutting off of contractors, having people on temporary employment—that is a hack and slash. That is absolute hack and slash going on by the federal government at the moment. It was 3,000 in the six months to December last year. I hate to think what it has been this year. Double that? Triple that? We should find out. We should find out what Gillard has been cutting. That is what we should do in this place. That is actually the government.
Why are we talking about something that may or may not occur down the track? Why aren’t we in this place concerned about what is happening right now? The job cuts that are happening right now—that the union, Nadine Flood from the CPSU, is saying are happening right now—are hurting the public. The job cuts are hurting the public. They are affecting agencies right now. Why is it that those Labor Party members over there are not concerned about what is happening right now in reality via the federal Labor government but are trying to create this bogeyman about Tony Abbott? It is hypocrisy. We have a real contradiction between the facts of what is happening and the appearance that the Labor Party here is trying to create.
The best thing for employment in this jurisdiction, ironically, in the last few decades, has been a Liberal government. You can look at the facts. Under the Hawke-Keating years unemployment in Canberra averaged 6.2 per cent. When Howard took over it was about eight per cent. Howard got it down to 2.5 per cent unemployment. During his years—bear in mind that he started at that eight per cent—the average was 4.9 per cent. The best thing for unemployment in Canberra over the last few decades has been a federal Liberal government. Ironic, isn’t it?
But let us not dispute the facts. They do not want to talk about the facts over here. They want to set up the bogeyman of Mr Abbott and ignore the reality of what is happening. The problem, though—the problem that they have—is that this constituency that they think they are talking to, the federal public servants that they think they are going to try and scare, are not stupid people. They are smart people. They are working in these departments right now. They have been subject to the efficiency dividends. They have been subject to the reduction. They know what is happening in reality. When they hear ACT Labor barking on about this—
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