Page 1461 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR BARR (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Urban Renewal) (10.52): I thank Mr Hinder for raising his motion and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for providing further evidence of being unfit to hold the position of Chief Minister with that series of personally offensive rants about individuals, no focus on the real issues, and consistently misleading this place, and through—
Mr Hanson: Madam Speaker—
MADAM SPEAKER: It is all right. Could you withdraw the imputation that Mr Hanson misled this place and consistently misled this place.
MR BARR: I withdraw, Madam Speaker. Mr Hanson and the truth often depart, Madam Speaker, and—
MADAM SPEAKER: Withdraw, Mr Barr.
MR BARR: I withdraw, Madam Speaker. Mr Hanson struggles with the facts, Madam Speaker, and that was demonstrated in that rant that we just heard: an angry man, a very angry man, who loses control of his emotions in this place, and we see that in the sorts of personal attacks, the rants and the avoidance of the facts and of any of the substantive issues that are before this place this morning.
It is amusing to hear the Leader of the Opposition talk about unity tickets on health and education funding. One is reminded of the statement made by the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, before the 2013 election and before his 2014 budget, when he cut $30 billion funding from schools:
As far as school funding is concerned, Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket.
I think we have heard before from Liberal leaders what being on a unity ticket means. Before the election it means we will run around saying we are on a unity ticket and pretend to care about those issues, but after the election what do they do? They cut. It is in their DNA. Tony Abbott did it. The former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, did it, and it is exactly what Jeremy Hanson would do.
He then raises a point around the commonwealth public service. It is probably worth reminding the Leader of the Opposition that when the Rudd government was elected in 2007 there were 155,091 public servants. When the Rudd government was defeated at the 2013 election there were 166,153 public servants. Eleven thousand additional positions were created over that period of government from 2007 to 2013. After that period of government, when the former Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, was elected and Joe Hockey, the former Treasurer, brought down that infamous 2014 budget, that was the point in time when the commonwealth public service began to shrink.
In this year’s budget we see confirmation of further savage cuts to our city’s national cultural institutions. The National Gallery, the National Library, which Senator Seselja is on the board of, and the National Film and Sound Archive have all been
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video