Page 183 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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and the Government through the Auditor-General. Nothing seemed to happen when the report was tabled in February, but when Labor came to power we addressed it. We took it to the Industrial Relations Commission, which is the appropriate forum to resolve these matters. The Industrial Relations Commission accepted that meal allowance was an appropriate entitlement for workers, and it is.
I am happy to say that. Mr De Domenico seems to have a problem. He calls it a rort. I do not see anything inappropriate in workers getting a meal allowance when they are required to work overtime. It is a condition of many awards, including, as I think I pointed out in question time, the award under which the personal staff of Mr De Domenico and all of us work. So, what is wrong with it?
Mr De Domenico: The Auditor-General called it illegal; I did not. The Auditor-General did.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, he did, and we fixed it. We took it before the Industrial Relations Commission and we got the award varied. What did Mr Kaine say? This is what Mr Kaine said on 8 August 1991 in this Assembly, speaking on his report No. 5 of the Public Accounts Committee:
The Auditor-General found that ACTION was continuing to make illegal payments of meal allowances to workshop staff. The committee notes ACTION's comments that payments would continue and that the matter would be addressed in structural efficiency negotiations.
That is what we did, and we got the award varied. He continued:
The committee ... will monitor the action taken in respect of the Auditor-General's concerns ...
There is the Public Accounts Committee, the proper watchdog of public administration, having absolutely no concerns with what is going on, and here is Mr De Domenico saying, "It is a scandal; it is a rort; it is outrageous". Mr De Domenico, you are just wrong. The matter has been fixed up. It has been addressed by the commission. It is an appropriate payment and it is continuing under the endorsement of the Industrial Relations Commission. So, that was nonsense.
We then come to this charge of inability to achieve necessary efficiencies in ACTION. This report, when read particularly in conjunction with the previous year's report, is cause for real concern. I acknowledge that. What this report shows is that during a period of Liberal administration, if you could call it that, all the indicators were going the wrong way. Mr De Domenico is getting extremely agitated and excited at the fact that this report shows that the number of buses has gone down and the number of staff has gone up. Indeed, that is what this shows, under your administration.
Mr De Domenico: What are you going to do about it?
MR CONNOLLY: It is not what we are going to do about it, Madam Speaker, not this airy-fairy idea that we will fix it with this right-wing rhetoric; it is what we have done. We have been in office now for approaching nine months. We have been at the hard grind of public administration and we have achieved real results. Let me talk about - - -
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