Page 4062 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 December 2021
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next door. No. Most ACT government employment is regionalised and distributed through all of the suburbs of Canberra. It will vary from directorate to directorate, but most staff are working under a hybrid arrangement that is going to continue into the future—forever, I hope.
MR CAIN: A supplementary.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Cain.
MR CAIN: Minister, post-lockdown, how many days a week is the average public servant likely to be in their office compared to working from home?
MR BARR: At the moment it is likely to be one to two days a week in the office and the rest at home across most directorates. In some, as I have outlined in my previous responses, like Health and Education, it will be five days a week in their workplace rather than working from home. Think about it, Mr Cain, in terms of whether they are directly delivering a service to someone in a school or a health facility. Again, if the question is about office workers then it is a hybrid arrangement and it will continue to be.
This is a global trend. The way we will attract and retain the highest quality staff is to have flexibility in working arrangements. So we will never go back to nine to five, Monday to Friday, everyone in the same office all together. That world is over; it is done. That is the case for all major businesses in this country as well. In fact, I think even the commonwealth are allowing a degree of flexibility for their own public servants as well.
The world has changed. The future of work has changed and we must be flexible and allow for hybrid working arrangements. That will mean that staff will come back into the office in greater numbers than is the case today, but it will never ever return to what it was pre-pandemic. That era is over.
Sport—CBR Sport Awards
MS ORR: My question is to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: can you update the Assembly on the preparation for this year’s CBR Sports Awards?
MS BERRY: I thank Ms Orr for her question. I am really excited to be opening tonight the CBR Sport Awards. These annual awards honour our Canberra athletes, celebrate our sports teams and provide collective recognition of the people and organisations that make sport such a central part of the Canberra community.
This year’s awards, of course, will look a little bit different, and despite the challenges it is important that we get the chance to celebrate the incredible achievements of individuals and organisations during what has been a very difficult year.
This will be my sixth year at the CBR Sport Awards as the Minister for Sport and Recreation, and every year I am astounded by the breadth and skill that we have in the ACT’s sporting community. With the highest sports and recreation participant rates in
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