Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I ask these questions of the minister: has the National Party established a new branch in Parramatta? At what point in time did Parramatta become classified as a regional or rural city? I welcome the minister's answers to those questions. Ten jobs are being relocated from Canberra to Darwin, and I do congratulate the government for doing that. Clearly, Darwin is a regional area. But I have to say, 82 of the 98 jobs moving from one capital city to another hardly constitutes decentralisation.

If we look at the total number of Australian public servants—and Hansard will have to be very careful to get the decimal points in the right place—approximately 0.0005 per cent of the entire Australian Public Service is being decentralised in this massive announcement. If you look at what's on the other side of the ledger, this is where it gets really interesting, and I'm going to ask the minister to directly answer this question. There are 1,280 jobs being cut from the Department of Human Services. Anybody who knows anything about the Australian Public Service will tell you that the most decentralised agency in the Australian Public Service is the Department of Human Services. They're the people who employ Centrelink and Medicare workers, run child support agencies et cetera. Can the minister guarantee, as a part of their great decentralisation agenda, that none of those 1,280 jobs that are earmarked to be cut from DHS over the next 12 months are going to be cut from a regional or rural location?

You can't be moving 100 jobs, mostly to capital cities from one capital city to another, and then slashing over 1,280 jobs and be saying 'We've done a great job here,' because you simply have not. The net result is ripping jobs out of regional Australia.

I ask the minister: does he agree with the former Deputy Prime Minister that your decentralisation program is BS? Isn't it true that your plan for decentralisation has been nothing more than a ruse to provide cover for the former Deputy Prime Minister in his disastrous plan and initiative to move the APVMA out of Canberra into his electorate as part of a pork-barrelling election commitment? Do you agree that this has been a complete fizzer— (Time expired)

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