Page 2350 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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We all know, for example, that one of the first things that happened when this Labor Government came into power was that it was given a direction - no more corporatisation. That direction was this: "No more. You have done Totalcare. Under no circumstances will we, the people who matter, the apparatchiks behind the scenes, allow you to corporatise". That happened, notwithstanding that every other jurisdiction in the country, and nearly every other jurisdiction around the world, realised that without that sort of micro-economic reform things are not going to work properly. This is what this amendment is all about - to steer the Government in the right direction, once and for all, and say, "Please, do not listen just to the Opposition; listen to the Industry Commission. Listen to some of the other Labor governments. Do the right thing. For once in your life, throw away the political ideology and substitute a good dose of commonsense". This amendment is all about commonsense, Madam Speaker, and it ought to be supported.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.20): Madam Speaker, Mr Lamont, as usual, went on with a whole lot of rubbish about this amendment. When we talk about reform in the way we manage things, and when we talk about things like micro-economic reform, it is often said that it sounds like economic mumbo-jumbo. They sound like things that are only about bottom lines. As we know, these sorts of amendments, amendments that give autonomy to the managers, to the people who perform services, are the sorts of reforms that have been achieved in Australia and around the world not necessarily and not only for bottom lines, but for efficiency. As we know, these sorts of reforms have been the basis of industrial reform in this country. They have been the basis of improved efficiency. They have not necessarily been the basis of cost reductions, but they do allow autonomy; they allow decision making to be carried out at the workplace level by the people who have to perform the functions. That is what it is about.
At the end of the day, it is not about ideology or anything else. It is about outcomes, and it is about making people at the workplace feel important, the people who are actually carrying out the function. It is about giving them some capacity to determine what their workplace looks like and what their outcomes in their workplace can be. That is what it is about. It is not what it is about just here; it is what it is about everywhere where they have gone down the track of trying to improve the lot of their public servants, of trying to give their public servants the capacity to be part of the culture that they achieve, or that they would like to achieve. The people we spoke to, as Mr De Domenico said, were not the New Zealanders, apart from Mr Kaine's visit there. They were people who have been involved in public service reform all around Australia, the vast percentage of them being in Queensland.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
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