Page 1922 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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MR MOORE (9.03): Mr Deputy Speaker, I think clause 12 of this Bill tells us a great deal about the Bill. Clause 12 is titled "ACT Government Service" and begins:
The Australian Capital Territory Government Service is established.
It is a government service. The Bill is prepared by the bureaucracy for the bureaucracy. It is not so long ago, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the term used was "civil service". There were many who argued at the time that all that they expected was civility and service. Then, of course, we used the term "public service", which I think is a far better term. We now see a transition to the notion of a government service, or a service that serves the Government rather than the people.
With that said, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that this Bill falls into two main categories. There are two main issues that we deal with. One is the transfer of the public service from the Commonwealth to the ACT. The second is about public sector reform. It seems to me that throughout the debate these two are being confused. In addition, the Chief Minister has set about establishing 1 July as the time for the transfer of the public service. I think it is unfortunate that the Bill also takes into its gamut the notion of a full public sector requiring some public sector reform. It seems to me that we have the opportunity now to deal with the transfer of the public service and to constitute a new select committee to deal with the second question, the question of public sector reform. To deal with that question we ought to have appropriate time and appropriate discussion.
Mr De Domenico, in his speech, talked about the issue of mobility, an issue which is critical to the transfer of the public service. He mentioned the negotiations that the Liberals here had with the Liberals in the Senate, particularly Senator Hill, and with the Democrats. In fact, it was my pleasure to work with the Liberals here and to carry on some negotiation myself with the Democrat spokesman on the ACT, Senator Bell, whom I found most receptive. In fact, it was through those joint negotiations that a solid bloc was established in the Senate to ensure guaranteed mobility, at least for a short time. I hope that in the Senate and in the House of Representatives the Federal Government will see the sense of those amendments and will simply accept them.
The report that was brought down by the Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service was in some ways limited. It was limited, in particular, in the lack of detail in what it presented to this house. I think the main reason for that was the lateness in receiving the actual legislation. The background work had been done and a rather extensive Bill produced. By the way, I disagree about this being the most important Bill that we have dealt with in this period. I think the most important Bill we dealt with in this period was the Electoral Bill. To me, that was the most critical one. Nevertheless, this is a Bill of great stature and at almost the same level. It was passed to that committee, with a very short time available to the committee to carry out its necessary role - that is, to advertise, to have people come to public hearings to make their comments and then to consider those comments in the light of the legislation. The difficulties are even more clearly explained by the amendments that were distributed to us on Friday night. Mr De Domenico and Mr Kaine have both drawn attention to those.
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