Page 1467 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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The budget is not all beer and skittles, and I do not think anybody has said that it is. But if you drill down into it, there is a lot that we can be grateful for. The large-scale cutting of the public service that happened under John Howard in 1996, that happened under Kevin Rudd and that was continued by Tony Abbott, is not there. We have settled onto a more solid base, and that must be welcomed. If you will not at least acknowledge that, I think it is a pretty poor analysis.
It is appropriate to look at what the ACT government has done. For all his critiquing, we never once heard in Mr Barr’s speech how he had closed 23 schools, how he was cutting jobs from Access Canberra even as we speak, how his cuts have caused job losses in the AFP in the ACT. What about the sanctimonious nature of cutting health funding at a time when 60 beds disappeared overnight from the University of Canberra public hospital? Indeed the definition of “beds” included hydrotherapy pools, couches, armchairs and waiting room chairs. It is a pretty poor critique when you drill down and find that your health minister does not have a handle on it and that he can blithely walk away from what he committed to do.
You should not throw stones if you live in a glass house. That is wise advice. This government has suffered from its own hubris. The people of the ACT have suffered from that hubris for way too long. The reality is that there is only one party in this place that consistently stands up for the ACT and takes on all comers, and that is the Canberra Liberals. We have always done it; we will always do it. We put the people of the ACT first, and we will continue to do so.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Minister for Housing, Community Services and Social Inclusion, Minister for Multicultural and Youth Affairs, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (11.15): I am pleased to speak on this motion put forward by Mr Hinder today and also on the amendment that has been put forward by Mr Hanson. I do not know whether Mr Hanson and I were watching the same budget being handed down last night, but I am happy to break down for Mr Hanson this morning what this budget means for young people in the ACT.
As minister for youth, I believe it is our responsibility, and the responsibility of our government, to look out for all low income Canberrans. I believe it should be the responsibility of our federal government to do the same for all Australians. But this budget seems to have been designed specifically to ensure that the brunt is felt by Australia and Canberra’s young people.
Treasurer Morrison included in his first budget a wind-back from his government’s commitment at the last election to match Canberra’s Gonski funding. This decision will make it harder for vulnerable young Canberrans to get the leg-up that they need in our local schools. He then made cuts to our local universities that leave our institutions with no choice but to raise fees through flagship courses that will do nothing but create a two-tier education system and make it harder for young people to get qualified. Maybe these cuts to education will not be felt by the people that Mr Hanson knows, but I can tell him that they will be felt throughout our community.
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