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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2146 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

If workplaces in the ACT Government Service cannot come up with 2 per cent in efficiencies - 2 per cent is not that much - in those sorts of areas I would be very surprised. In fact, having spoken to a number of the people that we are talking about here, to groups in our workplace areas, they believe that they can come up with that easily. We have people out there in the ACT Government Service wanting to have workplace-based agreements, wanting to have the flexibility that would mean, so that in some circumstances they could work at home, so that in some circumstances they could stagger their shifts, so that in some circumstances they can have a job-share arrangement if that is what suits that particular workplace; but we want to make sure that those sorts of arrangements do not upset their progression through the public service, their promotional capacities and so on. Those are the sorts of things we want to make sure are in this enterprise agreement.

We are focusing on the people who are working out there for the ACT Government, for the ACT community, and making sure that their workplace reflects their needs, their aspirations, and what they want from their particular workplace. We do not want some sort of mythical whole-of-government approach which simply has not worked. We have seen most graphically areas where that has not worked, such as the recent pay increases that were granted to nurses and to teachers by the previous Government. The nurses were supposed to have achieved certain productivity improvements, but because we had the approach that we did, which meant that they got their pay rise and then maybe something would happen afterwards, that simply has not happened. Because it has not happened we have ended up with very real budget problems in our health arena. It means that less money is able to be spent on service delivery and more is being used in the infrastructure that produces that service delivery.

I think that Ms Tucker is absolutely wrong when she suggests that this approach would take away from service delivery. It would be quite the opposite. The whole point of enterprise-based agreements and workplace agreements is that they focus on the needs of the workers in that workplace, and, most importantly, the services that are provided. They focus on the services being provided to the community. This Government wants to make sure that services are provided to our community. That should be the basis of our enterprise-based agreement approach, and it certainly will be if this Government is allowed to get on with the job of running this show.

MR OSBORNE (5.19): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

I seek leave to make a short statement as to my reasons for moving that motion.

Leave granted.

MR OSBORNE: I allowed this debate to start today because I am very aware of the time constraints in play, especially for the TLC. I am yet to make up my mind on what, I think, is a very important and crucial matter for a lot of people. I still feel, though, that there are some issues that I would like to raise, not only with the Government but also with the TLC, before I am prepared to commit myself. I would like to stress that the

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