Page 1937 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 June 1993
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.15): Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like, first of all, to address some of the very misleading statements that Mr Stevenson has made, in his typical fashion. Mr Stevenson, at the outset of his remarks, said that I have the power to hire and fire. I presume that the implication was that I ought to hire and fire most of my department. I should inform Mr Stevenson that I do not have the power to hire and fire public servants; neither does any Minister. Have you got that on board? I do have the power to appoint the head of the department, and that is it. The remainder of the staff are selected, promoted, appointed and so on in accordance with the Public Service Act, not at the whim of the Minister. That is the way it is in the ACT, and I think you should have checked your facts on that.
Mr Stevenson has also sought to use the staff attitude survey as a tool for a personal attack on me and on what he perceives as my management style.
Mr Stevenson: It was not you. It was management ability. It was not personal.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Deputy Speaker, I quite clearly heard Mr Stevenson make reference to my smile, as Mrs Carnell always does. Mr Stevenson obviously thinks it is a good political tactic to accuse someone of smiling, and he has injected it into the debate today. This is not a tool for personal criticism of the Minister. What we see in the staff attitude survey is a management tool to cope with change within a department, within a large organisation. Mr Stevenson simply does not understand that.
I would also like to say that, of all departments in the ACT Administration, in my view the Chief Minister's Department has had to cope with the greatest amount of change. I think Mr Kaine might agree with me that it was the Chief Minister's Department from the outset, starting from nothing, that virtually had to get self-government going. They were responsible for the implementation of the self-government Act, and upon self-government they had responsibility for virtually getting government going. Their early experience of that, of course, was not terribly happy. They had three governments in three years - an enormous amount of change.
Mr Kaine: They had only one good one, though. That was the one in the middle.
MS FOLLETT: I think they had two good ones, Mr Kaine, the first and the third. The Chief Minister's Department also comprises a very broad range of functions - everything from economic development to Cabinet work and Cabinet liaison, through to assistance to troubled young people in our community, women, Aboriginal people, the administration of grants programs, employment creation. A huge range of issues are dealt with in the department, and they have had to cope with enormous change. This staff attitude survey, I believe, is a brave and worthwhile venture by the management of my department to assist their staff to cope with change. Mr Stevenson chooses to use it in a purely political way to attack me, and that is fair enough. It is just not accurate or useful.
Mr Stevenson and, unfortunately, the television report on this matter last night have quoted extremely selectively from the findings of that report, and I am going to quote selectively, too, to try to get some balance into this debate. Mr Stevenson failed to mention that the survey results showed that 82 per cent of the respondents gained satisfaction from doing their jobs well - and so they might, because they do do their jobs well. Again, 76 per cent gained satisfaction
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