Page 2969 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 2013
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It is going to be challenging for anyone to get the federal budget back into surplus, but there is one side telling the truth, trying to be honest about this, and then there is another side that is anything but. We have seen the federal Labor government impose efficiency dividends that have led to job cuts—as I said, 3,000 or 4,000 job cuts. That is what is happening. Any of us who know friends or family in the public service will tell you that the squeeze is on. But that is not what they told us, is it? That is not what they said. The reality is this, and I will quote from the Canberra Times of 8 May 2013:
The federal public service shed more than 2500 jobs last year, the first time in a decade the Commonwealth bureaucracy has shrunk.
The latest APS jobs snapshot from the Public Service Commission shows there were 2608 fewer public servants in December 2012 than employed in June that year, as Labor’s cost-cutting and efficiency dividends began to bite in earnest.
No squealing from the Greens then. No, they were just patting their Labor mates on the back.
Increases in the efficiency dividend of four per cent are putting pressure on departments and we have seen redundancies in the public service: Defence, 972 jobs; the ATO, 420; the Department of Human Services, 1,078 jobs. And there were other departments. Finance and Deregulation announced redundancies; there was a call for 60 voluntary redundancies in the Department of Finance and Deregulation. The department of broadband and the digital economy announced 100 voluntary redundancies. Treasury announced 150 redundancies. The department of education and workplace relations—around 500 redundancies. Entire agencies have been abolished under federal Labor in cahoots with their Greens mates.
It is quite clear that that is not where it ends and that there is more pain to come for the federal public service under Labor and the Greens. In a media release of 8 August 2013, Community and Public Sector Union national secretary, Nadine Flood, another CPSU mate of the Chief Minister, said: “The CPSU estimates that based on the Economic Statement issued 2 August 2013, that at least 5000 jobs will be cut over the next three years.” And that is just what we know about. Five thousand jobs!
We have heard so much from those opposite about what is going to happen to the ACT economy; we have heard the concerns that they raise about job cuts. And I agree: we do not want to see any job cuts. But let us not be in denial about what is happening right now, what is planned under the Labor-Greens government, and what this government has been saying about it. The Canberra Times of 12 August, in an article headed “Worst purge in 15 years”, said:
Federal government workplaces are expected to cull more than 4000 jobs over the next 11 months …
Analysis completed by the Canberra Times showed that 4,000 public service jobs would be cut in the 2013-14 financial year. The article said:
The staffing purge would be the worst in 15 years …
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