Page 3382 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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We continue to invest in our world-class education system. We continue to invest in services for the most vulnerable in our community, whether that is $25 million extra for children and young people at risk, $13.3 million for more ambulance services in the city or $11 million for more social and public housing. And we are reforming the territory’s taxation system to ensure that the deadweight loss of inefficient taxes is removed from our economy and that the burden of taxation is shared more fairly.
That is a values-based decision that the Labor Party proudly stands behind. Again, it stands in marked contrast to the alternative policy propositions, such as they are, that are inspired by Sarah Palin and BA Santamaria. And that is what you get from the Liberal opposition.
Mrs Dunne interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves has a supplementary.
MR HARGREAVES: Mrs Dunne and I have got something in common: neither of us is going to be here for the next election.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, your question or you can sit down.
MR HARGREAVES: I do have a supplementary, but it is hard to get it out when you are talking about leaders like that. I ask the Treasurer please to outline if there are any alternative approaches the government could take.
MR BARR: Yes. We could adopt the policy approaches that we have seen from conservative governments that have been elected in some of the larger jurisdictions.
We could take the Campbell Newman approach. We could seek to massively slash employment in the public sector, withdraw funding from community services. We could seek to send our jurisdiction back into the 1950s in terms of social policy. They are the sorts of policy alternatives that are out there. We could follow the Victorian model of the Baillieu government that slashes investment in TAFE, slashes investment in public transport. We could do those sorts of things. We could follow the New South Wales government model, which is to seek to legislate to cap pay rises for the public sector, to continue to sack workers year on year on year. They are the policy alternatives. And then we look federally and we see the comments of Andrew Robb in recent days. He suggested that 20,000 jobs—20,000 of the 210,000 jobs in our economy—should be ripped out and relocated to other parts of the country.
That is the policy prescription of the conservative parties in this country. The Liberal Party is the party of recession in this city. Everybody knows it. Zed Seselja is tied to Tony Abbott in a three-legged race to the bottom of public policy.
MR SESELJA: A supplementary.
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