Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak more loudly. A few days ago, of course, the government announced, courtesy of Senator Wong, that it was breaking that election promise and increasing the efficiency dividend from 1¼ per cent to 1½ per cent. I put that on the record because broken promises from this government are now so frequent that they are not even newsworthy anymore. We know that both major parties at the last election proposed to reduce the cost of the Public Service, but of course only the coalition was prepared to be honest about its intentions. Labor also said in the last few days that it would save cultural institutions by providing that the dividend did not necessarily apply to small institutions like the cultural institutions, but in the budget tabled last night the budgets of those institutions were all reduced on account of the increased dividend.

Senator Brown and his Greens closely supported the Labor Party's campaign in the ACT against the coalition's proposals, and now Senator Brown's Greens support the government and their budget by guaranteeing supply. The hypocrisy inherent in this motion is breathtaking, and for that reason the coalition senators will not support it.