Page 5885 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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Annette Ellis had to say. In fact, it was all the Labor members here in Canberra. It was Bob McMullan, Annette Ellis and Kate Lundy all saying this:
The Liberals will do this by increasing from 1 percent to 1.25 percent, the ‘efficiency dividend’. This will require each agency and department to deliver this ‘saving’ to Treasury each financial year. This equates to real budget cuts of $240 million which will mean job cuts in the Commonwealth public sector. This blanket approach to an efficiency dividend is lazy and vindictive.
That was when it was 1.25 per cent. What did they do? They went to an election and again lied to the people of Canberra. They said, “We won’t increase the efficiency dividend.” They have broken that promise not once but twice. They took it to 1.5; now they are taking it to four per cent. And they have the gall to come in here and pretend that it is someone else’s fault. The Labor Party are responsible for the economic mismanagement. The Labor Party are now imposing cuts on the public sector that they said they would not do. This is about honour, truth and integrity, and the Labor Party do not have them.
Mr Speaker, what we are seeing here tonight is rank hypocrisy—what we are seeing from federal Labor and what is being backed here by Katy Gallagher and Andrew Barr. You want to stand up to it—
Ms Gallagher: I have not even spoken yet.
MR SESELJA: We know how you are voting, so unless you are going to break ranks with your deputy and Treasurer, we know how you are voting. You are voting to endorse the cuts. Here tonight the Labor Party—Katy Gallagher, Andrew Barr, Simon Corbell and all of the rest of the Labor Party team in the ACT—are saying: “Well done. Well done on the cuts.” We heard it from Andrew Barr. They are saying, “Well done.” That is what their vote will do today. They are voting against it. The very thing they voted for when it was hypothetical Liberal cuts they will now vote against.
The people of Canberra will see very clearly tonight what their Chief Minister thinks. Their Chief Minister, their Deputy Chief Minister, their whole ministerial team and their backbench are all saying tonight, “We value public sector jobs when it is a federal Liberal government.” When it is a federal Labor government doing the cutting, the Labor Party in the ACT do not go and do the job. They will not stand up to their Labor mates, because they cannot bring themselves to do it.
Do they really care about the families who will suffer from these cuts? We know they do not, because Andrew Barr is on the record. He tells porkies about the extent of these cuts. Nadine Flood says that it will be 3,000 and it could well be more. He says that it will be 300. Everyone knows that is a lie. Everyone knows that is not true. The moral bankruptcy of this Labor Party is here for everyone to see. It is there in federal Labor and we are now seeing it endorsed with ACT Labor. They have got the chance to stand up.
Ms Gallagher interjecting—
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