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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 1855 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Ms McRae spoke extensively about a Government responsibility to do certain things. Ms McRae, the chief responsibility of the Government here is to provide this service in a context of expanding demand. Services all over this Territory are having increasing calls on them. That means that we need to look at how we can provide those services on a more cost-effective basis.

Ms McRae: You are just being a cheapskate.

MR HUMPHRIES: Ms McRae says that that is being a cheapskate. To quote Ms McRae herself, that is unnecessary and irrelevant nonsense and really is quite a concern from a person who purports to be a responsible member of this Assembly. How can a responsible government, knowing that this problem exists, not proceed to take action to sustain the same level of service to people in the community at risk, but at lower cost?

Mr Speaker, I think that the Opposition has advanced a quite ideological response to this. The Opposition does not believe in the transfer of functions to the private sector no matter what the circumstances. They do not care if it is Richmond Fellowship or any other private sector or not-for-profit organisation in the community. They say that these things must be done by government. That inflexible response has contributed to the present financial position the Territory finds itself in. In the last five or six years, chiefly under the Follett Government, there was no move towards exploiting the considerable expertise and well of resources and goodwill in the private sector in these sorts of areas. The view always taken was, "No; only the Government must do that. No; the level of government employment in this area must be maintained". That irresponsible attitude, Mr Speaker, has cost this community very dearly.

Ms Tucker raised a different issue. She raised the question of whether it was conscionable to have people in the government sector - that is the way she put it on the radio this morning - paid $140,000 to head departments and, on the other hand, to have people in the private sector paid only $26,000 to do certain jobs at youth shelters. I have a great problem with the concept of people comparing work at different levels in that way. I do not know whether Ms Tucker was suggesting that, in effect, people ought to be paid at the same level across the board for jobs they do in the public sector. Perhaps she is a very radical person and believes that that is the case. I believe that jobs of greater demands and greater responsibility deserve greater remuneration, but that is just my view. The point, though, is that if she believes that there is some inequity in the current wage structure we should have an inquiry into that issue in the context of the whole of the ACT Government and not in the context of this particular issue.

The call has come to us now to deal with this issue in an urgent fashion. We have to provide services in this area and they are costing us an arm and a leg. We believe that we can do it more cheaply but just as effectively in another way. Mr Speaker, let us have the issue that Ms Tucker wants to raise considered in another context. I believe that it is important for us to proceed in this area. I do not think an inquiry at this relatively late stage in the process is going to be useful or worth while. If members believe that there is not a case for moving in this area, they have not explored very thoroughly the problems that are facing this area at the present time.

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