Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I and many members of the community in Brisbane said goodbye to a long-term stalwart of the public sector union, 'Big Al' Lucre, who unfortunately recently passed away. Al was someone who stood up for working people his entire life, and I know that he would want me to continue to stand up for working people here in this place, particularly the many thousands of jobs lost from Queensland's public sector since the 2012 state election in which the Newman government took power.

Before that election, they said that the public service had nothing to fear from a Newman government; that there would be no cuts to front-line services. Since the election, what have we seen? We have seen the Treasurer, Mr Nicholls, telling parliament that a real job is in the private sector—implying that if you are in the public sector you are not in a real job, which is terribly insulting.

There have been 14,000 jobs lost in the public sector in Queensland, or more if you believe some of the reports. Despite the promise before the election that there would be a four per cent unemployment rate within four years, unemployment in Queensland is now seven per cent seasonally adjusted, which is an absolute crying shame. Right to information requests by the nurses union have revealed that 4,821 health jobs have been lost since March 2012, including more than 1,700 effective full-time nursing positions in Queensland, which is yet another disgrace.

The state Treasurer has been unable to tell the Queensland parliament just how many GOC jobs have been lost on top of those core public sector jobs.