Page 3417 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
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She continued:
… reductions already in the pipeline will mean an estimated 3,500 to 4,000 jobs disappearing from the public sector in Canberra.
She also said at that time:
… I reaffirm my concern that, while the ACT has not been singled out for cuts, public sector cutbacks will still have a far greater impact on Canberra than on any other city in Australia, as I am sure everybody here agrees.
Given that this level of cuts appears to actually be less than what we can expect from the current proposals, we can only assume that the impacts will be correspondingly larger. I would remind everyone who lived in Canberra at that time to remember what it was like—most people’s largest asset, and probably the biggest output from their pay check every week, suddenly being worth 30 per cent less than they paid for it. All those mortgage payments were going to nothing—giving the money to the bank for an asset that was worth 30 per cent less than they paid for it.
We are a very small and vulnerable economy. There are simply not a lot of other options for people who lose their jobs. The Greens have consistently argued that we need to transform our economy to a low carbon economy and shift our workforce to low emission industries and alternatives. However, the fact of the matter is that right now there is simply nowhere for these people to go if they lose their jobs as proposed by Tony Abbott and the Liberals.
This was, of course, demonstrated by the fall in housing prices, as I have mentioned, in 1996 and 1997. People simply had to leave Canberra to get a job. We all have an obligation to ensure that we do our utmost to prevent this from happening. We should be creating a green economy that recognises where the opportunities of the future are, diversifies our economic activity and reduces our susceptibility to the whims of the commonwealth. But, as I said, we must recognise where we are today and what drives our economy now.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MS HUNTER: It is rather unfortunate that Mr Hanson is not at all worried about those families that are going to end up jobless, those families that will not be able to afford their mortgage payments and those families that will not be able to feed and clothe their children. It is obvious that Mr Hanson is not at all concerned. I guess that is a view which must be shared by the Canberra Liberals, because he has obviously shown his contempt for those families in the ACT that may be facing this situation.
The commonwealth public service is heavily concentrated in the ACT and our economy relies on commonwealth expenditure and the employment that it generates. The greatest single risk to the immediate economic prosperity of the ACT is the expenditure of the commonwealth. The unfortunate thing is that, while we are the most vulnerable, we are also perhaps the least influential. We are a football throughout the country, picked up and kicked when it suits the cause. What we
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