Page 1616 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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infrastructure right across the territory, in all the different regions, to ensure that we are leveraging new private sector investment and delivering the community facilities that this city will need into the future.
We recognise that we will need to do the heavy lifting in this area. I know we have willing partners in the private sector, and that is encouraging. And what is important, I think, out of this particular period is capacity for the government to work closely with the private sector. I reiterate that we will be doing that. We have already announced a series of measures to allow that, and we will continue to do so.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.32): It is always nice to speak after the Treasurer because the Treasurer does not often say much. Last year on a motion on the federal budget of that time he had absolutely nothing to say, and that is the problem with this Treasurer, if you look at the debates the day after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government delivered a budget—and it is kind of hard to remember who was in office at that stage—that brought 14,473 job cuts to the Australian public service. To give Ms Gallagher her due, she tried to sugar coat it, and when you look in terms of job cuts, you can find one paragraph in an entire speech, and it goes:
In terms of savings and efficiencies across the public service, finding those additional savings will be hard. But on one level those savings can be met in a moderate way; they will not deliver a shock to the ACT economy of the order that we would be expecting should an incoming government remove 12,000 to 20,000 public servants from the ACT. That is the silent sleeper in terms of Canberra going forward.
Well, the silent sleeper was asleep in last year’s budget, and according to the head of finance, as a consequence of last year’s federal Labor budget, 14,473 jobs went. There is only one party in this place that has consistently stood up to whoever is in office in the federal parliament about job cuts to the ACT, and that is the Canberra Liberals. If you look for a single comment from Treasurer Barr about last year’s cuts, you get the words “fiscal consolidation”, but you see no defence of Canberra and you see no attacks on his federal colleagues over those job cuts, unlike this side of the house, whether it be Kate Carnell all those years ago who stood up to Howard or whoever. We have stood up to all the governments time after time saying, “Do not use Canberra public servants as balancing items on your budget.”
I have said it before many times and I will say it again: I do not like the cuts. I deplore the job losses. I have never heard this man opposite say words like that. It is funny; when he had an opportunity to talk on this issue, when I offered him that opportunity, he was mute. He said, “I will let others go in first,” and I go, “But I’m closing the debate,” and he sat there. He did not have a single comment to offer. Madam Speaker said:
The question is that the amendments be agreed to.
Give Mr Rattenbury his due. Mr Rattenbury got up and had words in that debate. It was me, Ms Gallagher, Mr Hanson and Mr Rattenbury. Mr Rattenbury did not say much about the job cuts either, mind you, but here we are; here was an opportunity:
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