Page 1482 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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should not be a prophet of doom following the federal budget, suggesting Canberra is well positioned to handle the changes.”
Sadly, members, we have seen those opposite being a prophet of doom. Instead of talking up our economy and supporting the Canberra Liberals’ motion today to say, “Let’s put some money into the convention centre to get it shovel-ready,” they just want to take it back as homework to the federal government. What we have seen from this mob—
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR HANSON: Mr Barr is interjecting. Let us see if he was being a prophet of doom. Mr Barr said that this will devastate our local community. Is that helpful, members? We heard from Shane Rattenbury, saying, “It’s a disaster.” That is what he was saying. We have heard similar things from all of those opposite. I could not help thinking that they sound very much like an opposition.
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR HANSON: I hear the interjecting from Mr Barr. He is quite twitchy about this one because he knows that this government, this local government, instead of standing up and saying, “Yes, it’s a tough budget, but we’re going to respond and we’re going to do what Kate Carnell did,” is being negative. She came to this place and she went out into the community. As a result of her policies—and I commend Mr Smyth, who was part of that—they made Canberra stronger. They responded in a positive way. They got on with the job. That is very different from what we have seen today, which is political opportunism, and the Chief Minister spending half of her speech complaining about my not being present and then ironically disappearing.
Mr Barr is very twitchy about this whole process. The wall of negativity has been disappointing. We heard some of that in question time as well. What I would ask you, members, through you, Madam Assistant Speaker, is this: where were these concerns when Kevin Rudd cut 14½ thousand jobs from the federal public service? We know this is true because I will refer to Mr David Tune, who is the Secretary to the Department of Finance, who was being questioned by Senator Wong. This was said late last year:
The advice that the government has received is that, over the forward estimates, the funding profile that you determined translated––
this is to Senator Wong—
into 8,819 fewer Public Service jobs, and that that reduction combined with another 846 jobs from so-called more efficient management structures and 4,808 jobs through the additional efficiency dividend to 2.25 takes the total reduction in public sector staff to 14,473—as a result of decisions that you––
referring to Senator Wong—
made before the last election that were never publicly disclosed.
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