Page 1452 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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Government funding priorities
MR HINDER (Ginninderra) (10.24): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott MP, promised in 2013 that there would be “no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions and no cuts to the ABC or SBS”;
(b) in its 2014 Budget the Abbott Government cut funding to education, health, concessions for pensioner concession card and seniors card holders, the ABC and SBS;
(c) the Turnbull Government has refused to reinstate the full amount of funding cut from education, health and concessions;
(d) the Commonwealth views repairing its budget as more important than funding health, education and important concessions for pensioners and seniors;
(e) the ACT Government has filled the shortfall in funding caused by the Commonwealth’s axing of the “National Partnership Agreement on Certain Concessions for Pensioner Concession Card and Seniors Card Holders”; and
(f) the Commonwealth has shifted the responsibility for funding this concession directly back on to States and Territories; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) continue to provide support for low-income Canberrans, including through the ACT Concessions Program;
(b) continue to provide high quality health, education and community services for the Canberra community; and
(c) welcome the commitments from Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and federal Labor to resource the full Gonski needs-based funding model for Australia’s schools.
I thank the Assembly for the opportunity to speak on last night’s Liberal Party budget and the crippling effects the federal Liberals’ continued cuts to the public service and concessions for pensioners and seniors across our community will have on Canberra and on Canberrans. The Liberal Party have a long history of having little or no regard for our city as our capital and of having no intention of keeping their promises to the community when they talk about funding commitments and support for jobs and public services.
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