Page 1995 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It would appear that the Treasurer cannot raise the energy to stand and defend his federal Labor colleagues. That is a condemnation that will ring loud around the Assembly. It will ring loud around the territory. And I will make sure it rings loud around the country when I tell everybody that I can get on to that not even the Treasurer of the ACT, the Labor Treasurer, thinks that this is a good budget. He can find not a single good word for this budget.
As to the amendments from Mr Rattenbury, perhaps Mr Rattenbury has not heard from Susan Helyar, the ACT Council of Social Service director, who, according to a news report, lashed out at the lack of boost to social payments in the budget. She said that the poorest members of the Canberra community would suffer as a result. With no increase to Newstart payments, thousands of people looking for work in Canberra are stuck on $35 a day, she said. She referred to how ironic and cruel it was that during two decades of tax cuts and growth in tax concessions no government has been willing to show corresponding generosity to the poorest people in our community.
That is why, when I asked for an assessment of the full impacts of the sixth federal Labor budget, I left it. I intentionally did not put in “social, economic and financial” because I just assumed that everybody would want to know what the full impacts are as the government sees them. If you want to limit it to financial, you can only assume that the Greens, as a member of the government and the cabinet, want to hide what the social, and indeed the environmental, impacts of the federal budget will be on the ACT. I say: shame on you for that. It is outrageous that you would simply say, “Let’s just look at some numbers,” when it is the real impact.
This is why last year we put in that there be a cost of living statement in the budget—so that we knew what the ACT budget meant to the people of the ACT. Now you would seek to exclude what the impacts of the federal budget are, the government’s analysis of the impacts, on the social and environmental wellbeing of the ACT. I think that is a shame.
Mr Rattenbury’s response to the motion does raise the question of what the federal Greens will do about this budget. How in good conscience could any senator vote for a budget that makes the country weaker, dumber and meaner? But we all know that the Greens will vote for this budget. They will vote for this budget because that is ideologically where they lie. It is interesting to see that Mr Rattenbury wants to strip out the politics of the argument. He wants to strip them out, but let us face it: weaker, dumber and meaner are meaningless if you do not vote against it. And let us have no doubt that the Greens senators will vote for this budget.
It was interesting that Mr Rattenbury raised cuts to the CSIRO as opposed to cuts at the CSIRO with whipper snippers. He faltered. He realised his mistake. He grabbed those words back as quickly as he could. Yes, we are against cuts to the CSIRO, but at the CSIRO, as long as you are using a biofuel to power your whipper snipper, they are okay.
Mr Coe interjecting—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video