Page 1178 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 7 May 2014
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I do not think I heard anybody on the Labor side of this house or Mr Rattenbury mention the two words “Gillard” and “Rudd”. There are these missing years, the missing years from 2007 to 2013, where, of course, nothing was happening in Canberra. We had indecision. We had abuse of the public service, for which former Prime Minister Rudd was legendary. We certainly got very little in the way of capital works or significant spending. They could not even get out of their Labor colleagues money for capital metro. They were told to go away and do their numbers again because the numbers did not stack up. So there was not much of a build going on from 2007 to 2013.
But if you look at the Howard years, yes, the start was tough but after that we got the National Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the upgrade to the Federal Highway, the upgrade to the Barton Highway. We got several works done at the War Memorial, a number of new monuments. We got the upgrade of the Mint. The list goes on and on—building the cultural and the artistic infrastructure of this city, something Labor did not do.
It is interesting that they all ignore Rudd and Gillard because it is perhaps the number 14,457 that they are most afraid of, and that is the jobs that went under Gillard and Rudd, something that the federal Labor members have never acknowledged. In fact, they have denied that there were any job cuts. Many of the problems that this city faces today had their genesis in the mismanagement and the style of government of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and there is never a single acknowledgement from those opposite of their failings.
In fact, Andrew Barr, the chief cheerleader, thought some of the Rudd cuts were good. He thought cuts to the travelling programs of the cultural institutions were a good thing, and he said so, because he thought somehow that that would mean more people would come to Canberra. Senator Kate Lundy bought that one. But that is the problem with this debate. Those opposite fail to acknowledge the failures of their side. This is the only party, the Canberra Liberals, that will stand up to both sides when they attack the ACT because that is our job and we will do it well. We have understanding for the problems that Mr Abbott faces. They are problems created by the Labor Party, and it is unfortunate that the clean-up has to come.
It is interesting that we talk about the grand plans. In particular, Mr Corbell recited a litany of plans. None of them will amount to anything if you do not deliver them. And I simply point out, in regard to his City Hill: a concept for the future, none of it has been delivered a decade later. And, of course, Mr Corbell was responsible for the GDE debacle. When we talk about delivery, it was, what, five years late and double the price—double the time taken, and the original budget was $55 million but it was probably closer to $200 million on completion. It was four times the cost—an absolute failure. Then, of course, there is the prison debacle. Yes, you can have all the plans and all the glossies that you want in the world, but if you do not deliver—and people know that you do not deliver and the Auditor-General’s report says you do not deliver—then that is the problem. And that is why Mr Hanson’s motion today is important.
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