Page 3307 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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MS FOLLETT: I thank Mrs Carnell for the question, Madam Speaker. In due course, of course, the Public Accounts Committee will be scrutinising the Auditor-General's report and the Government will be responding on that report, and responding in full. Madam Speaker, the Department of Public Administration has taken early action to address this problem which the Auditor-General has highlighted. I do not resile from the fact that it is clearly a problem, but if you read the Auditor-General's report you will also see that he has commented on the complexity of travel allowance arrangements and on the need for more effective guidelines to be drawn up. He has also commented on the fact that there were certainly some overpayments but, equally, a large number of underpayments.
Madam Speaker, I think the fact is that the Auditor-General has pointed to a legitimate concern, and one which I share with Mrs Carnell. Madam Speaker, part of that complexity, particularly to do with overseas travel, of course, is in regard to fluctuations in rates of exchange. That is a matter which I know from personal experience was difficult to address during the business delegation to Japan last year. It is a tricky issue. I can also say that, because overseas travel is a relatively rare event, it is unlikely that many officers get a great deal of experience in those calculations. There is clearly a need for the question to be addressed. The Department of Public Administration is addressing it. The whole issue, as I say, will be addressed as well through the scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee and the Government's response to that committee.
Government Service - Staff Numbers
MS ELLIS: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. I ask the Chief Minister: Has the Opposition Leader again been careless with the facts in her allegations about ACT Government staff numbers?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, the short answer to that is yes. Mrs Carnell has, regrettably, been extremely careless; she has been shooting from the lip again when it comes to staff numbers. Yesterday in question time Mrs Carnell said that total ACT Government staff numbers had increased over the last year. In fact, that is not the case. I said yesterday that I did not have the figures with me, but I have since scrutinised them and I am quite amazed at the statement that Mrs Carnell has made. I think she has been very careless. She should have checked the facts. Just a phone call would have quickly set her on the right track. In fact, rather than check anything, Mrs Carnell, as is her wont, whipped out a press release, this time headed "Follett Government spends 17 million on redundancies but PS increases". Quite wrong, quite wrong!
Madam Speaker, let me quote just briefly from page 9 of the Head of Administration's annual report, which was tabled in the Assembly on Tuesday. It says:
The Pay 27 figures for 1993-94 show that the overall staff numbers for the ACTGS experienced a slight decline -
decline, hear that -
from the equivalent period (Pay 26) of 1992-93.
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