Page 5237 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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changed from a payday to payday operation to one based on a period starting on a Sunday. An incident has been related to me in which a tenant received a letter stating that the tenant's account was in arrears in the sum of $300-odd. When that tenant queried the situation and established that the account was not in arrears - because the tenant was having deductions made from a government salary base - the office advised that $60 was still owed because of a broken period covering from the Wednesday night to the Sunday, or the Sunday to the Wednesday; I am not clear which. I ask the Minister whether he could look at this matter carefully and perhaps consider putting a public notice in the journals. There is no need for the Minister to apologise; that is not what I am seeking. I wonder whether a public notice may not be appropriate, in view of the queries coming in.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Collaery's suggestion re a public notice may well be appropriate. In addition, we are certainly writing to everyone concerned. I have asked my officers to give me a full report on what happened and why, and when I have that, as I previously indicated, I will provide it to the Assembly. But I thank Mr Collaery for his suggestion.
Urban Services Budget
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister for Urban Services. I understand from comments he has made today that the Urban Services budget, according to him, may be under target. I also refer to comments attributed to the departmental secretary today which indicate that a 1 December deadline for shedding some 120 staff will not be met. Can the Minister inform the house how many staff are to be shed from Urban Services in this financial year, how many staff have been shed to date, and how far behind schedule this staff reduction program is?
MR CONNOLLY: Certainly, the full process of the negotiation and the RRR redundancy process will not be completed by 1 December. There are ongoing meetings with the unions. I am confident that the budgetary targets will be met. The target for savings was contained in the budget papers and was gone over in great depth in the Estimates Committee.
Mr Humphries' question of yesterday was whether our budget was blowing out. He is a gentleman who speaks with some authority on budgets blowing out, with his $17m health record. He asked for the position for the first five months of the financial year. We are still within the fifth month, so I can give him the position as at the end of the first four months of the financial year.
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