Page 1983 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 May 2013
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jobs that were cut in the six months leading up to December last year or any jobs that may have been lost so far in the second half of the financial year which, of course, in denial they say is not happening but in reality, as we talk to our friends in the public service, we do know is happening.
I have a friend in a compliance area in one of the federal departments who started the year with 20 staff. He is now down to 10 staff and he has no budget in the second half of this year to enforce the compliance issues that he is legislated to uphold. We all know those stories but we have denial from our federal colleagues and we have denial from those opposite that this is happening. It is happening. We now know that the Department of Human Services and the APS are big losers in this, with the biggest losses to be focused on middle management.
The federal government are saying that the revenue has collapsed, which we know is not true. Their inappropriate targets, their misleading targets, were not met. But revenue has gone up and it will go up even more with the introduction of pay parking in the parliamentary triangle, raising $74 million for the government over the next three years. This equates to something like, on average, $2,600 per public servant working in the parliamentary triangle. And if you are a young family starting out and you have got a car because you drop the kids at care or at school and you leave to pick them up and the only suitable mode of transport for you is the car, you are paying $2,600 a year. How is that going to affect your cost of living?
Let us look at infrastructure. I do not think I heard the word “Canberra” mentioned as the Treasurer rattled off all the infrastructure projects that they announced in the budget last night. I did not hear a single new infrastructure project for the ACT, and I look forward to those opposite pointing out what it is we got in this year’s budget. The Property Council says:
The 2013 federal budget’s commitment to infrastructure spending is let down by missed opportunities and misguided tinkering.
This is a government that cannot be trusted. This seems to be the recurring theme in all the budget analyses this morning. The budget sadly fails. It fails the ACT, it fails our public service, it fails on jobs, it fails families and it fails on the economy.
If we go through the list of promises, the Gillard government promised, the Prime Minister promised just days before the 2010 federal election, there would be no carbon tax “under the government I lead”. Gillard opposed Rudd’s introduction of the ETS in 2009 and could have formed government without the Greens. But she lied to the Australian public and then she lied about the tax cuts that would follow.
This is another quote:
The government had previously ruled out dumping the 2015 tax cuts.
However, with the carbon package in tatters, the price in tatters, the estimates in tatters, the federal budget confirms that the promised tax cuts for the 2015-16 year have been abolished.
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