Page 169 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 26 February 2014
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.23): Madam Speaker, I start by apologising to the Assembly. Apparently Ms Burch is upset that nobody from the Liberal Party spoke earlier. I will apologise. I was at a funeral. I went to Brendon Morrison’s funeral. I tried to get back as quickly as I could to speak on this issue. When we get from a minister puerile attacks of that nature about why people are not speaking, it really does ruin the tenor of this place.
It is interesting that, I am informed, members opposite do not seem to be inclined to support the amendment that accurately portrays what is going on in the federal public service. It is a shame that they will not. We do now have the evidence of the impact of the Labor years on the ACT economy—something that those opposite have denied. The Treasurer calls it “fiscal consolidation”. As you lose your job from a federal Labor cut, you can be pleased that you are part of the fiscal consolidation of the Labor program in the Australian economy. And we still have an amazing statement from Senator Lundy which is not recanted or apologised for. In a press release on 1 February 2012, she said:
The Government expects agencies to continue to meet the efficiency dividend without resorting to forced redundancies.”
They continue to expect.
We had all those lines from Labor members before the last election, including one from Mr Leigh:
The efficiency dividend has been in place for a long time and I’m confident that it shouldn’t lead to job losses.
Well, Mr Leigh, the cumulative effect is that now 14,473 jobs are going from the Australian federal public service as a result of those decisions that you made.
It is interesting to read some of the Hansard. I understand Mr Hanson has read it, but there is one particular paragraph where the public servant says that the job cuts are “implicitly built into the base”, that it is implicit. When you make cuts of this nature, you are cutting jobs.
Senator Wong says:
Sure.
The public servant comes back and says:
And the emphasis here is on the word “implicitly”. The impact—
meaning the impact of Labor’s cuts—
of your funding cuts on Public Service jobs was never made explicit before the election. If you look at the evidence from the Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday, they made that point as well. The Parliamentary Budget Office did not know the impact of your funding cuts on Public Service jobs …
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