Page 3523 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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That has been the case ever since self-government, and it will remain the case after the ACT public service separates from the Commonwealth Public Service. By tradition in Australia - in my view, it is an excellent tradition - public servants are apolitical, and that will certainly remain the case once the ACT public service is created.
Madam Speaker, I think that in many of the speeches I have made on this subject I have given a fair bit of information on what I expect of this public service. In my speech on 17 December 1992, for example, I said this:
It needs to be a career service with entry and advancement on merit. It needs to be equitable, and the legislation should set out the values and principles we expect our public servants to apply in the discharge of their duties. It needs to be accountable to the Government and through it to the Assembly and the community. Management needs to be proactive, responsible and responsive. Its staff should all be well trained and we need to provide them with the working conditions that allow them to contribute fully to the level of their ability. The structures and procedures of our Public Service should allow it to operate efficiently and effectively.
Madam Speaker, in a later speech I expanded upon that. It was a major speech on our progress towards a separate public service. At that time I said:
... our vision is for a unified service, built firmly on community values and a culture of service. It will be a unique service, yet one that retains links with the other public service with which it shares its home and its origins.
Madam Speaker, I think that what will be different about the ACT public service, and there are a couple of aspects, really relates to how the staff within that public service conduct themselves and how they respond to the community. Members will know that there has been a great deal of thought given to the values and the principles underlying the public service. I have given a commitment that the new Act, the new legislation, will be built on clearly enunciated values and principles that will be observed across the public sector, complemented by an overarching code of ethics that will bind all public servants. I think that code of ethics, Madam Speaker, will make this ACT public service quite different because it will be a legislated code of ethics to which all ACT public servants will be obliged to adhere. I think that is a new approach but one which will serve our community very well.
I have also said of this public service that we will retain our commitment to social justice, and we will add legislative force to access and equity provisions in addition to our existing provisions of equal employment opportunity and industrial democracy. I have said elsewhere that offences like sexual harassment will be covered under the disciplinary provisions of this Act. I think it is quite clear, just to respond briefly to Mr Kaine, that we obviously are looking for a public service of the very highest standards - not just in policy formulation or program implementation, but also in the conduct of those public servants. There has been, throughout this whole process of debate, a very clearly enunciated standard, and that standard is of the very highest.
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