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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 1063 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The core antagonism of the contemporary Liberal Party and the media to the concept of a significant role for government is nothing but an ideological fetish. It is a bad and short-sighted public policy in a mixed economy such as Australia's. But in a small economy like ours in the Territory, which is the engine room of the public component of our national economy, it is a recipe for disaster.

I am not going to play the Chief Minister's game and focus exclusively on the operating loss. She will have to read the Canberra Times for the predictable applause about her financial genius. What you do not have to be a genius to appreciate is that our broad fiscal position is not a tribute to Mrs Carnell's talent so much as an indictment of John Howard's miserable ideological assault on this community. John Howard and Peter Costello claimed that there was a black hole in their budget. They replaced it with a black hole where Canberra used to be.

Mr Speaker, this is a budget that attacks the lower paid, the less advantaged and the most vulnerable in our community. This is not a caring budget - unless you care about the big end of town. This is a budget that delivers largely to one sector in our community - the business sector. This is a mean and sneaky budget. This is a budget that puts up vehicle registration fees for the family station wagon. This is a budget that slugs some parents an extra $22 a term for school bus fares. This is a budget that cuts preschool funding by half a million dollars and has the blind hide to argue that preschools are not part of the education sector. This is a budget that will cost some home owners another $100 a year in insurance payments. It is a budget that slugs Housing Trust tenants.

This is a budget that denies the Chief Minister's election commitment to "make a real and measurable difference" to the status of women by the year 2000. There is nothing but further hardship and financial pain for women in the ACT in this budget. Job cuts in the education sector, at the Canberra Hospital and in other agencies; rent increases; the lack of any budget support for the introduction of the SACS award; and the threat of an omnipresent GST, supported by Mrs Carnell, will all impact heavily on women at home and in the workplace. Mrs Carnell admits in her budget that periods of downturn in the economy will see greater levels of unemployment for part-time and casual employees. Despite Mrs Carnell's flippant answer in question time, gender studies show that these positions are predominantly filled by women; in particular, by working mothers who supplement their limited incomes by working a few hours a week to pay for those little extras. Slyly hidden away in the back of the Canberra Hospital's statement of intent, we find reference to "movement" of 76.7 jobs by the end of 1999. "Movement" is what it is now. "Movement" is a euphemism for "job losses". Close to 60 of these cuts are cuts to jobs currently held by women. The Government's predisposition for wiping out the part-time and casual work force will have far-reaching ramifications for working mothers in the ACT.

The introduction of the SACS award will see the closure of some community and welfare organisations, unless the Government assists these agencies with funding commitments under the new award. Once again, these cuts will affect part-time and casual employees. Yet the Government shows no compassion for the impact of these closures on female employees and little regard for women currently being assisted under these programs.

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