Page 1813 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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the new levels of salaries of the New South Wales education authority, which were recently advertised - a whole lot of them, not one or two, at $120,000 per annum for senior posts.
My question is not to do with the salaries, which are properly the concern of a remuneration tribunal, but could the Minister say whether there are any measures under way, and what kinds of measures, to ensure our continued competitiveness in this crucial area of retaining senior staff?
MR WHALAN: I thank Dr Kinloch for the question. I think that one of the many advantages that came out of the Estimates Committee hearings was the opportunity that so many members of the Assembly were given to assess the qualities, the very high qualities, the excellent qualities, of the senior staff of the ACT Administration. I must say that the staff of the Schools Authority - the chief education officer, Dr Willmot, and his three senior executive officers - are people in whom I have the greatest confidence. I have a great deal of admiration for their skills and ability. What came out very clearly was their willingness to cooperate with government last week and their openness before the Estimates Committee. Their grasp of detail was most apparent. I think that we would be very disappointed indeed to lose any of them, because they would leave a gap in quite important organisations.
We at this stage, of course, are limited in our approach to the offering of executive salaries. We know that the New South Wales Government has made a radical departure from the previous policies as they related to senior executive salaries. There is a limit to which one can follow those sorts of movements. We are still subject to certain constraints of the Commonwealth public service in relation to salary levels. While there have been some movements in the Commonwealth in relation to the salaries of statutory office holders, there is still no indication of a move toward changing the employment conditions of permanent heads of departments. I think one of the best bits of insurance that we have for our senior officers is to make their work as rewarding and their work environment as attractive as possible.
Children's Services Legislation
MR BERRY: I now have some information in front of me in relation to a question that was raised by Mr Duby earlier in question time about the Children's Services Act, and in particular in relation to the four-year-old Canberra girl who was returned to her disabled mother against the wishes of the local welfare authorities. I think the first and most important issue is that the Assembly needs to be assured that the welfare of the child in question has not been compromised. Officers of my department are monitoring
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