Page 1465 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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There are a number of other programs in health which have been stopped. The preventative health national partnership, which Mr Hanson often goes on about—gone. The elective surgery and emergency department funding—gone. Adult dental services—gone. The Indigenous early childhood national partnership—gone. All of those have gone—some of them from July this year, some of them from July next year. The GP co-payment is being introduced. (Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms Berry.
MS BERRY: Chief Minister, do you have an early estimate of the number of direct job cuts in the commonwealth public sector in the ACT and any assessment of the flow-on impact to private sector jobs in the ACT?
MS GALLAGHER: As to the convenient line of “Don’t talk down our economy”, I think the people of Canberra expect their Chief Minister to stand up and be honest about what happened to this city last night. I am not going to pretend it did not happen. I agree that we have to move on and work out how we manage the impact of last night, and we will be doing that. But on day one after this city took a beating, I think it is fair enough that we stand and articulate exactly what happened last night in this city: the Australian Taxation Office, 2,329 jobs; the Department of Industry, 732 jobs; the CSIRO, 489 jobs; Immigration and Border Protection, 400 jobs; the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 535 jobs; the Federal Police, 347 jobs.
In the next year alone, the ACT is being asked to shed 50 per cent of the commonwealth job losses. That is in the next 12 months. Probably our neighbours, our friends, people our kids go to school with, their jobs were taken last night, and we should be feeling for those people today. We should not be pretending that this did not happen and that we are not allowed to talk about it under the guise of, “Oh, you’ll talk the economy down.”
Mr Coe: We had a motion on it this morning.
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, we had a motion this morning that nobody turned up for! The senior leadership of the Canberra Liberals did not even have the time to come into this place and debate that motion today. That is how seriously you took what happened to this city last night. Could not even be bothered to get out of the armchair and come down and listen to what happened. So the two most senior members of the Canberra Liberals do not care about it at all.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
Opposition members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Ms Porter has the floor. I would like to hear her.
MS PORTER: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Chief Minister, are there any aspects of the federal budget that will have a positive impact on the ACT?
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