Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Did I just promote the parliamentary secretary? He can make a personal explanation later. This is a government which is withdrawing regional jobs as it closes ATO offices. A government which is serious about jobs ought not to be firing Public Servants left, right and centre, particularly not as the growth in public sector employment under Labor was slower than the population growth. The growth in the number of Public Servants was smaller than the growth in population. Most public services are deployed on the basis that you need a certain number of people to look after the population, whether that is the hardworking Public Servants in the Centrelink offices, Family Assistance offices or Medicare offices. Anyone who argues that Australia has a bloated public employment problem ought to say that doubly of the Howard government, which had more Public Servants per capita than we have today.

So in the short term the government is withdrawing demand and it is cutting jobs at a fragile time for the economy. But it is the long term that worries me even more. In the long term if you want to sustain employment you need to make the investments in skills and in infrastructure. You need to make the investments in the National Broadband Network and in urban rail, both of which this government is walking away from. Having breached their solemn pledge to the Australian people to deliver 25 megabits a second to Australians by 2016, they have now said that, disappointingly, that that is impossible to deliver on. Having said that he wants to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has now backed away from Infrastructure Australia, a process designed to put infrastructure decisions at arm's length. And he is being criticised by members of the business community for being unwilling to fund urban public transport, something which is fundamental to city productivity.

Then there is what they are doing on education. You need investment in great schools if you are to build the jobs of the future. This is where Labor said, 'We're going to strike a deal with states where we put in $2 of federal funds and the states guarantee a dollar for federal funds.' This government's funding deal is, 'We'll put in $2 of federal funds and if you want to take out your funds at the same time, feel free.' That is a very different deal to the unity ticket that Australians were promised on school funding and it is fundamental to Australia's economic prosperity. We cannot be a high-skill, productive nation in the future if we are slashing into schools, if we are getting rid of trades training centres and if, as this education minister has suggested, we walk away from the demand-driven model which has allowed children first in their family to attend university and which has benefited particularly rural and regional students.

These hits to Australia's productivity and to our short-term growth prospects are deeply disturbing. We need the government that we were promised before the election, a government of no surprises and no excuses that takes responsibility, steps up to the plate as an adult government and is willing to make the decisions that the Australian economy demands.

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