Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Furner for his question. This Labor government is one that faces up to its responsibilities when it comes to helping people. This is in very sharp contrast to the position that has been argued on the other side of this parliament. As recently as 22 August, the member for Menzies announced that the Liberals, if they were to get into government, would devolve responsibility for service delivery to the states. What a hollow gesture that now is revealed to be!

The state Liberal budgets have now revealed that they will want to pass on this advice from the Commonwealth to empty offices. What we are seeing with the Queensland Premier's actions yesterday is that there will be responsibilities that the Commonwealth will largely have to now bear. What we are looking at is that community groups have lost $368 million, local councils have lost $60 million, skills and training have lost $287 million. And that is before we take into account the consequences of the losses in human capability as a result of the job cuts in the public sector in Queensland—that is, the knowledge, the skills and the experience that is being ripped out of the public sector within Queensland. We have 1,400 jobs from the health department, 400 people taken from community services, one-quarter of the workforce gone from housing and public works. And all of this will mean there is greater responsibility that ends up at the Centrelink office door.

This is the true nature of the Liberal government. It is an ideological hatred of the public service. They are adopting a policy advocated by Phillip Blond and his Red Tories of the so-called big society— (Time expired)