Page 1543 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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Madam Speaker, as you know, in that letter to you I said that, if you wished or if members wished some other organisation, especially the Administration and Procedures Committee of this Assembly, to review backbenchers' staffing, then I would give careful attention to the results of that review. I made that suggestion for a number of reasons. First of all, Madam Speaker, I do not any longer - and I will be very blunt about this - want to be the sole arbiter of staffing levels for backbenchers.
Madam Speaker, over the five years or so that I have been Chief Minister, I have had one request after another. The minute you satisfy one, there is immediately a raft of following requests. There is forever this leapfrogging process. You no sooner satisfy one request than others follow. I do not want to be the sole arbiter, and I do not want to have to take sole responsibility for what may well be excessive claims by members opposite. Madam Speaker, I suggest that members give consideration to a different method of consideration of staffing for members. I suggest to them that if they adopt that approach it is they who will be taking responsibility for it.
I am aware, Madam Speaker, that Mrs Carnell has put in a request for Mr Humphries's staffing allocation to match that of Mr Berry. I stand by what I have seen in the review which has been conducted by the Office of Public Sector Management. I can see no reason to accede to that request. Madam Speaker, the manager of Opposition business is simply not the same job as the Manager of Government Business, and you have only to look at the Government program to know that. In addition, Mr Berry has responsibility as the Secretary to Cabinet.
So, Madam Speaker, I leave it in the hands of the Assembly. Mrs Carnell has said that she will respond on the matter of the Administration and Procedures Committee considering staffing. She has said that she has other options that she is also looking at. I am awaiting your response, Madam Speaker, on the matter of the additional funding which I have said will be allocated and how you want that broken up. As I have said, I am getting somewhat wearied by having to deal with constant staffing requests in this manner. If you can come up with some other method of managing it that you perceive as fair, then I am prepared to look at it.
MR DE DOMENICO: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Chief Minister, noting the swiftness with which you acceded to Mr Berry's review, when it took you 12 months to accede to a review of other backbenchers, I ask: What did Mr Berry's review ask for, and will you table a copy of what Mr Berry asked for?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I have not quoted from that statement. Clearly, if I am ordered by the Assembly to table it, I will respond; but it is private correspondence, and I believe that I have fully answered the member's question.
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