Page 3451 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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There are some further staff movements contained in the budget - for instance, the Survey Office transferring in, and the Director of Public Prosecutions Office transferring in. There are staff movements throughout the budget. There is also, for instance, a lessening or an apparent lessening of the number of police for the ACT. That should not be interpreted as a loss of police positions, because it is not.
The fact is that the Commonwealth has agreed to fund some 42 additional police positions in recognition of the fact that they are required on national duties rather than community duties. So, there will be no reduction in police numbers as a result of that, but clearly the budget figure shows a salary equivalent of 42 police fewer. So, there are those sorts of movements throughout the budget papers. But I really should stress that the figures that Mr Kaine has alluded to do not reflect government decisions on job numbers; far from it.
The only decision which we have taken as a firm and announced decision is in regard to administrative staff, and we are, of course, making the savings and achieving the efficiencies that are outlined in the budget, fully committed to following all of the proper processes and the provisions of relevant awards. So, there must be full consultation with unions before savings are implemented. That has happened in regard to the 250 administrative staff. It will occur in relation to any other staff savings that are proposed or that might be proposed in the course of agencies achieving the efficiencies that the budget clearly requires of them.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. As the Treasurer has failed to answer the question, I have to ask: Does she repudiate the statement at page 49 of her budget paper which says that, consistent with the reduction in real terms expenditure, "expected average staffing numbers shown in Budget Paper No. 5, show an expected reduction in staffing in 1991-92 relative to 1990-91 of approximately 500 full time equivalent staff"? That is not the figment of somebody's imagination. It is figures extracted from Budget Paper No. 5. Do you repudiate that? If you do, are the rest of your budget figures, including the number of hospital beds and the number of jobs to be created for our youth, just as fuzzy as this lot?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I can answer the entire question again, if that is the wish of the Assembly. I should point out yet again that what the budget paper says is that it is approximately 500 full-time equivalent staff. In other words, it is a translation of dollars into full-time equivalent staff. I repeat, Mr Speaker, that the Government's decision in relation to 250 administrative staff has been announced, and that the figures that appear
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