Page 2135 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (3.40), in reply: I would like to thank all my colleagues for their kind words today and their support for this motion. Mr Rattenbury raised a number of very important points in his speech about the support and the ongoing commitment to funding for the CIT here in Canberra. He is correct. Other TAFEs and other vocational education training facilities across the country struggle to make ends meet and struggle to continue to receive government funding. It is wonderful to see that our CIT is still going strong, after so many years here in Canberra, in the work that it does to support our community by training them and giving them opportunities.
I rise to address some of what Miss C Burch raised in her speech. I do have to empathise with Miss C Burch a little. She probably is not able to remember the 1996 cuts of Mr Howard’s era and how Canberra suffered terribly under those cuts. I was entering the workforce. I know—Madam Assistant Speaker Orr, you spoke about this in your speech—it was under those cuts that Canberra suffered irreparable damage. Small businesses went broke. People lost their lives, their livelihood, their homes and their families. It was quite devastating to sit around and watch those terrible decisions, made by people that did not necessarily live here, affect us so deeply.
It is why, as Ms Cheyne has said today, we continuously come into this place and stand up and fight for our community and for secure jobs in our community. We stand up and ensure that we will not let those across the lake do this to us ever again. It is the Barr Labor government that continues to invest in our economy. It continues to invest in our small businesses by providing the opportunity to become export market ready—to give them advice, to promote them, to help them to be able to promote their wares, not only nationally but internationally.
I heard today the Chief Minister comment that 62 per cent of our workforce is now employed in the private sector. Sixty-two per cent is such a wonderful thing to see. It is such a wonderful thing that we, on this side of the chamber, continue to stand up to ensure that those jobs that 62 per cent of Canberrans work in are secure, well paid and well supported.
I again would like to thank everyone for their contributions today, particularly those on this side of the chamber. I remind Miss C Burch that, when she does try to give me a history lesson, she may need to go a little further back in history to look at exactly what Canberra has suffered under some of the cuts that her federal colleagues have made. I commend the motion to the Assembly. Thank you.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Health—infrastructure
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (3.44): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
(a) the importance of maintaining health infrastructure for the wellbeing of the whole Canberra community;
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