Page 2890 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 1991
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and in full consultation. I do not expect anybody to like the staff cuts; I do not like them myself. I think it is a very sad day when any number of positions have to be reduced; but there is clearly an imperative for the ACT Government Service to be as lean and efficient as it is possible to make it, for the sake of the rest of the community.
Mr Collaery asked whether numbers of positions have been identified. To be brief, and I will deal with it fairly briefly, the answer to that is yes. These are not across-the-board cuts. They have been targeted and targets have been set within agencies. Again, that has been done in agreement with those agency heads. So, it is not an across-the-board proposition. Where some agency heads have agreed to make a bigger effort than others, that is the case. It is not a totally even distribution of those 250 or so positions.
Mr Collaery went on further to ask whether I agree with the Institute of Public Administration view that the way to reduce staff numbers is through an examination of functions. In general terms, I believe that that is the valid view. However, in the particular case we are looking at in this year's budget, what has been decided is that the positions that will go are not those which provide service delivery to the ACT community; the positions targeted are generally described as administrative or administrative support positions. That is an outline of what is occurring. I would like to assure Mr Collaery that, to the best of my knowledge, the mechanisms that are in place to achieve those staff reductions will operate smoothly, fairly and reasonably, and have been particularly tasked to avoid an impact on people in the groups that are generally within the ambit of EEO conditions and programs.
I think that covers all of the points Mr Collaery made, but I will say again that it is not a task I relish. It is a task I undertake only in particularly harsh budgetary times. It is my intention that it be conducted smoothly, in full consultation, and without the kind of impact on specific groups that Mr Collaery has outlined.
Bicycles in Shopping Centres
MR JENSEN: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. The Minister may recall that I wrote to him about a problem with cyclists, big and small, failing to consider the rights of shoppers, particularly the elderly and the infirm, by failing to comply with the ACT Traffic Act in shopping areas. In his reply the Minister said that he was not prepared to ban cyclists from shopping centres, and I tend to agree with that. However, will the Minister agree to consider the use of our mounted police men and women to patrol centres when a problem is brought to his attention? He knows what I mean by "mounted" - our bike patrols.
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