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MS McRAE: I have a supplementary question. If the buildings are going to be levelled, if there is contamination there the land will have a cost to it. What do you expect to be the cost? In terms of a joint venture, have you built in the cost of the assessment and the removal of this contamination?

MRS CARNELL: It seems that Ms McRae does not understand what a joint venture is. A joint venture partnership is exactly that. The ACT Government will bring the land to the joint venture partnership. The private sector will do the building, will do the levelling of buildings that we do not need, and will do the decontamination of sites. Certainly, that comes with a cost; but whoever does it, under whatever circumstances, that is a cost to this development but not a cost to the ACT Government. It absolutely stuns me that a group of people who were in government in this city do not understand joint venture developments and do not understand that this is actually a money-making concern. The Kingston foreshore development will be a very definite money-making proposition, not just to the ACT Government but to the private sector, to the arts community and to the tourism community in the ACT. This is not a cost. This will make money for the people of the ACT. Therefore, the cost of decontaminating the site is not a budget item.

Government Service - Senior Officer Pay Rates

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, I direct a question to Mr Tony De Domenico, the Minister for Business, Employment and Tourism. I wish to draw the Minister's attention to bans being imposed by a small group of senior officers in the ACT Government Service over pay rates. Can the Minister tell this parliament how the Government's offer compares with other offers made to senior officers in the Australian Public Service? I have a great concern that the ACT senior officers may be behind their Federal counterparts.

MR DE DOMENICO: I thank Mr Hird for his question. The offer to the ACT senior officers provides for abandonment of the individual performance pay scheme and substitutes for that increases in rates of pay by an amount equal to 50 per cent of the maximum of the performance pay base currently available. That is part 1. It also abolishes the current scheme of reimbursement for work-related expenses and introduces in lieu a new allowance paid with salary and having the same after-tax value as the current scheme.

The general outcome for senior officers in the Australian Public Service is as follows: It abandons the current scheme of individual performance based pay and, in lieu, adopts the general agency-based pay increase for senior officers. In the main, it is an average adjustment of 4 per cent in rates of pay. Some Australian Public Service agencies have retained the current work-related expenses scheme. Others, on the other hand, have incorporated this into salary, or adopted an arrangement similar to the ACT’s.

In summary, Mr Hird, while the Australian Public Service outcomes are variable between agencies, a general comparison of the overall package offered by the Government with the Australian Public Service developments shows that annual salary for ACT senior officers will be in advance of that of their counterparts in the Australian Public Service.

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