Page 855 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
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Tuggeranong and he fought for a new building for the department in the Tuggeranong town centre. Senator Seselja announced the move of Defence Housing Australia to Gungahlin last year, which will make it the first federal agency in Gungahlin and bring almost 300 jobs to the Gungahlin town centre.
Senator Seselja fought for all of these things and has delivered. Not only has he fought to keep local jobs in Canberra; he has also fought for jobs and businesses in the ACT more broadly, with two key achievements being a $91 million federal IT contract, which will deliver 180 local jobs, and the 44,200 businesses benefiting from fast-track tax relief for small and medium businesses in the ACT. As a result of Senator Seselja’s lobbying, the federal coalition government is the first ever to take into consideration local impacts on Canberra before making a decision on relocations. A local impact assessment is now required, as a direct result of Senator Seselja’s lobbying for Canberra jobs.
While this is great progress, it is not enough. I agree with Ms Cheyne’s motion that the federal government on either side must release cost-benefit analysis on potential relocations, and we deserve to see more from the inquiry. Decentralisation is an incredibly costly exercise. It is costly in terms of the physical cost of relocation but also in terms of the costs associated with the loss of skill, experience and institutional knowledge when staff decide to leave instead of moving with their department or agency. It can take years for the public service to rebuild this capability.
It is important to also note that, while we do not support the federal government’s move towards decentralisation, where decentralisation has occurred it has not been at the expense of Canberra jobs. Despite what Ms Cheyne would like to have us believe, there were more APS jobs in Canberra last year. While 2,140 public servants left Canberra, 2,518 public servants arrived in Canberra, a net increase of 400 jobs. Last year’s federal budget also included an additional 912 APS jobs.
What Ms Cheyne and Mr Barr seem to have very conveniently forgotten today is that, once again, it was their federal Labor colleagues who began the process of decentralisation. It was the Gillard-Rudd government who chose to set up the national disability insurance scheme in Geelong and the Gillard-Rudd government who chose to move FaHCSIA staff from Canberra down to Geelong with it. If this was not pork-barrelling by the Labor Party, I do not know what it was.
Under the Gillard-Rudd government, many APS jobs were moved into Sydney’s western suburbs and Melbourne’s east and west, while Geelong and the Northern Territory both saw huge growth in APS jobs—jobs which should have been in Canberra. Ms Cheyne has also conveniently ignored the fact that the federal Labor Party also continues to pursue decentralisation. Only in January, Bill Shorten announced 300 DHS jobs in north Queensland.
I cannot believe the absolute hypocrisy of 5(d) in Ms Cheyne’s motion, which appears to call on the Assembly to vigorously refute attacks on APS integrity and service. Of course we vigorously refute these attacks. However, the hypocrisy in this statement is unbelievable. This government is completely failing in its duty to protect ACT public servants. It is all well and good for Ms Cheyne to stand up in this place and lecture us
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