Page 2632 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 August 2019
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recognise that the future of this public service city relies on the strong public provision of essential services.
MS ORR (Yerrabi) (3.34): I am pleased to speak on the importance of ACT essential services remaining in public hands. Canberrans value the essential services that keep our city running. Our public transport network helps us move around our city. Our city services workers keep our city clean and tidy and protect our natural environment. Our CIT educates thousands of Canberrans and provides them with job opportunities in secure, skilled work. Our public servants work hard to deliver government services and support Canberrans every day. Our nurses and doctors provide us with quality public health care at our hospitals and walk-in centres. These essential services are vital to the life of the territory and this Barr government is committed to supporting them.
In my own electorate of Yerrabi our record investments in public transport and free public health care are valued by the entire community. Light rail has enlivened our town centre, and more people across Gungahlin are now choosing to travel on the new network. Our light rail and buses provide convenient, reliable and accessible transport options to keep Gungahlin connected to the region and other parts of Canberra.
It is not just the passengers who value our public transport network. Transport Canberra employs over 1,000 people in a variety of roles within the agency. These workers are employed to provide an essential service to the community and they are supported by this government to do so. Under the Barr Labor government these workers can be confident that their jobs will never be cut, sold off or outsourced, unlike what we see from Liberal governments in other jurisdictions.
Since its opening last year Gungahlin’s nurse-led walk-in centre has continued to provide free, high quality public health care to local people when they need it. Constituents have told me time and again that they are very happy to have a free public health care service in our region that is accessible for them and their families. As the fastest growing area in Canberra, Gungahlin relies on strong government investment in health, and I am proud this government can guarantee that we will always deliver that.
Although our government is committed to keeping essential services in public hands there is some doubt about what those opposite might do if they were elected. We know Liberal governments across the country are obsessed with privatising essential services. We have seen it in New South Wales with transport and electricity assets outsourced and sold off. We have seen it in South Australia with the recently elected Liberal government’s plans to privatise Adelaide’s trains and trams. We saw the former Western Australian government try to privatise Western Power, and it took the McGowan Labor government to be elected to stop this sell off.
Unfortunately, the list of Liberal privatisation agendas goes on and on, which is why it is fair to ask what the Canberra Liberals have planned if they were ever to be elected into government. As a former public servant I know how brutal a Liberal government can be in slashing the public service; I have spoken in the Assembly before about how my job was cut overnight under the Abbott government.
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