Page 1761 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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broken promise on family payments. They have walked away from that. They promised people tax cuts as a result of the carbon tax package, and they have walked away from them just today.
They sign a statement of support for Canberra—what is the wording of the statement? They sign a statement of commitment to Canberra whilst they are sacking commonwealth public servants in Canberra. Right then they would have been sacking commonwealth public servants, and Julia Gillard is saying we should believe her on this.
What we do know is that each of the local federal Labor members said there would not be job losses. In fact, we saw in 2011 Andrew Leigh say that the efficiency dividend would not lead to job losses. He was confident it would not lead to job losses. We had Penny Wong repeating that, that it was not going to be a cut to jobs. We had Kate Lundy saying that it would not come from job losses. Yet we have seen redundancies, both voluntary and involuntary, in this town. We have seen the number of public servants drop by 3,000. That is just what we know about at the moment. That will continue under Labor.
We have the hypocrisy of a party which promised no carbon tax and then turned around and broke that promise after the election saying to us that we should trust them when they say they are committed to Canberra, when they are doing the opposite. They have been the party of high unemployment in Canberra. Even in the time since the Howard government left office, we have seen that the unemployment rate in the ACT has tracked up far quicker than unemployment nationally. We have caught up, effectively, in our unemployment rate compared to the rest of the nation.
Mr Barr: No, we haven’t.
MR SESELJA: Yes, we have.
Mr Barr: No, we haven’t.
MR SESELJA: Yes, we have.
Mr Barr: No, we haven’t.
MR SESELJA: Yes, we have.
Mr Barr: No, we haven’t.
MR SESELJA: You do not think we have? What is the unemployment rate right now, Mr Barr? He is not interested in figures. Our unemployment rate was in the twos. It is now at 4½ per cent. It is now a little under one per cent below the national average. It was not one per cent below the national average when it was sitting at 2.9 per cent. It was not. So Mr Barr’s interjection again is wrong. He does not bother with the facts. He spins this story. So let us—
Mr Barr: Record levels of employment, Mr Seselja.
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