Page 162 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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Mr De Domenico: He said that it was illegal, though. Only if it is in the award. It was not in the award.
MR CONNOLLY: What happened, as Mr De Domenico says, is that it was not in the award. We took the matter to the Industrial Relations Commission. Commissioner Sheather said that this was a reasonable allowance which was in accordance with longstanding practice, put it in the award and retrospectively said that it was okay. When we became aware of the problem we moved very swiftly, within a matter of a month or so, to regularise the situation. It was a legitimate claim by those particular workers. It is now in the award and the unauthorised payments - I will not say illegality - have ceased. They now are authorised, and they have been retrospectively authorised. It is sensible Labor industrial relations.
MR DE DOMENICO: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Did the Government therefore submit a recommendation before the Industrial Relations Commission to legalise these payments, in fact, to get the Minister politically off the hook?
MR CONNOLLY: No; the Government, as it has done in a range of matters, has cleaned up and fixed up a problem that the Alliance Government did nothing about. We considered that it was an appropriate work practice. That was ratified by the Industrial Relations Commission. I note that the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by your leader, Mr Kaine, in its report No. 5 made no adverse comment at all in regard to this matter. That, of course, was a report commenting on the Auditor-General's report.
The Auditor-General indicated a problem. This Government fixed it up, and Mr Kaine, chairing the watchdog committee, was happy with the way this Government fixed it up. Mr De Domenico seems to have a problem. As I say, if he is getting obsessed about meal breaks and meal allowances, it looks as though anyone who is on his staff might have to come and get a sandwich on the Labor floor.
Government Service Senior Officers -
Transport Allowance
MR MOORE: My question is to Rosemary Follett, the Chief Minister, in her capacity as being in charge of the public service. The current package, as I understand it, offered to senior officers A, B and C in the Federal public service, and consequently in the ACT, offers an allowance for car parking but does not offer reimbursement for public transport. Do you think that in the interests of the environment it would be appropriate to offer not only reimbursement for public transport costs but also perhaps a twofold reimbursement as an incentive for people at this level to use public transport rather than use their private vehicles to get to and from work?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I would submit that on a strict interpretation of the standing orders Mr Moore's question is probably out of order in that he has asked me for an expression of opinion.
Mr Moore: Indeed.
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