Page 5848 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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I have to say that I consider this Bill extremely unfair in its present format. I detect a certain vindictiveness on the part of the Government in that it is not prepared to consider this amendment. It seems to me that here we are talking about a group of people who, for the most part, feel assured of re-election and are going to be paid a salary throughout the period in which the election results are being counted.
Mr Kaine: Which nobody else will be.
MR HUMPHRIES: Which nobody else in this Assembly will be, except for one person - - -
Mr Moore: Who has moved the amendment.
MR HUMPHRIES: Who has moved the amendment. It therefore puts us in a very different position from that in which most members of the Government find themselves. It is a little unreasonable, I think, to expect that your rather luxurious position is the same position other members of the Assembly might find themselves in. It clearly is not.
Ms Follett also says that she has no desire to make provisions in this legislation that will assist the members. I should remind her and her Government that only a few weeks ago the proposal still on the table was that this be a non-contributory scheme. Until this idea was revised by the Government, no members, on this side of the house at least, had any idea that there was going to be a need for them to make a substantial monetary contribution for their first three years of service in the Assembly. We are being told within a very short space of time, "You find the equivalent of 5 per cent of your salary for a period of three years". That is not necessarily an easy thing to do.
I do not mind laying my cards on the table as well. I do not have that amount of money available and I will have to convert an asset - an asset I put aside for my retirement - in order to make that money available. I might also mention that there are two reasons for converting that asset. Firstly, if this legislation goes through it will be partly on that basis; and, secondly, the asset now attracts land tax, and I, for one, do not intend to be paying the amount of land tax I am now up for on an indefinite basis. Those are two reasons, attributable to this Government, why I am now going to be making my retirement asset - - -
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Relevance, please, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: I think it is extremely relevant, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. The fact of life is that I cannot save up enough money in the course of the next six or eight weeks to pay out that amount of money. I will not have the resources to do so because I am going to be saving in any case to get through the period between 15 February
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