Page 1462 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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savaged, losing between five and 10 per cent of their staff. How those small institutions are supposed to cope with cuts of that magnitude is beyond the pale. It is very disappointing to see that those small institutions were not exempted from the ongoing efficiency dividends.
Mr Hanson in his speech referred to glowing coverage in the Canberra Times. You go to their website and the lead articles are about where the budget pain will be felt in Canberra and about what was the point of the last three years of government. They are the two lead stories on the Canberra Times website about the budget. Mr Hanson may wish to cherrypick one article but the overall perception of the budget for Canberra by most commentators, perhaps all but one, is that we missed out on major infrastructure projects, with the exception of an additional $7 million for the light rail project.
I did make the point last night, and again on radio this morning, of welcoming that extra $7 million for the light rail project, and that is a welcome boost for the project and now demonstrates—with $67 million from the commonwealth, plus the money that the government has raised through the asset recycling initiative on the asset sales themselves—that the $375 million government capital contribution, paying for more than half of the capital cost of the project through this particular initiative, will easily be achieved. All of those misleading claims that have been made by those opposite in their ideological opposition to public transport provision in this city have proved once again to be false.
Mr Hanson comes into this place and rants and raves, raises the volume, blusters, tries to work his way through by shouting and thinks that is the only way he can get his message through because the substance of his philosophy is out of touch with Canberrans. He leads the most conservative branch of the Liberal Party in this country. He leads a team who occupy the far right of the political spectrum. Canberrans know that. They know that his values and the values of his team are wildly out of touch with the progressive values of this city. We know that. The people of Canberra know that. And it is demonstrated in this place in the sorts of angry contributions that you get time again from a man who fails policy test after policy test, who demonstrates an unfitness for the office of Chief Minister, because all he is reduced to in the end are personal attacks on members of this place, angry shouting, interjections, constant rude interjections on speakers in this place, sometimes even on his own colleagues, and that reflects upon the character of this individual.
He attacks me. He attacks me for having the courage to implement policy reform, to invest more in education, to employ more teachers and to improve the quality of our schools by undertaking a difficult reform process. At least I had the courage to take that on. Compare that to the last Liberal education minister who tried and failed to reform our education system, the former Senator Gary Humphries when he was the education minister in this place.
Mr Hanson: He cut 23 schools, did he?
MR BARR: He tried. Good on him? Right! When Gary Humphries way back in the early 90s attempted to reform the education system, good on him, but when I actually
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