Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

This morning I was alerted to some concerning statistics about how the Abbott government's Public Service job cuts are affecting Canberrans. The Canberra suburbs of Kambah, Greenway, Oxley and Wanniassa have been listed as the most at risk of mortgage default in the country. The list was compiled by consultancy firm Digital Finance Analytics, which mapped the postcodes across the country where people could face financial collapse when interest rates start to rise. The study states that the most difficult thing for a mortgage holder is to suddenly lose their job. And that has been the case for 8,500 Canberrans public servants—and 17,000 across the nation—since the Abbott government came to office. This was the case for me in 1996 when, along with15 ,000 other Canberrans and 30,000 public servants throughout the country, I lost my job as a result of the cuts by the Howard government to the Public Service.

What did that do to Canberra? Non-business bankruptcies jumped sharply in 1995-96 by 38 per cent and again in 1996-97 by 17 per cent, while business bankruptcies jumped in 1996-97 by 38 per cent. Shops closed down, house prices plummeted, people left town and our population fell. It had a devastating effect. That is my fear for Canberra again, and these mortgage default statistics are proof of how hard the Abbott government's public sector job cuts— (Time expired)

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