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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2390 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister's Department now includes the Office of Public Administration or whatever it is called now. The treatment of the public sector in this budget is proof positive, if anybody needed such proof, that what we have here is very much a Liberal government, a traditional tried and true Liberal government. Their approach to the public sector is to cut it to the maximum extent that they possibly can and to treat the public sector as though it were a private sector as much as they believe that they possibly can. This kind of approach is absolutely unjustified and is absolutely unsuccessful in relation to public sector issues.

I do not believe, as this Government appears to do, that everything the private sector does is done better than everything the public sector does. That is ludicrous. I believe that, in adopting some very outdated, or at least jaded, private sector management techniques and jargon, the Government will do absolutely nothing for the Canberra community in terms of better management of the public sector. All they will do, of course, is jeopardise public sector jobs. That is one of the biggest defects in this budget. Whether it is through the contracting out of everything that the Government can think of to contract out, whether it is through changes to the public sector employment legislation or whether it is simply through reductions in funding in various budget areas such as the libraries, this budget represents a massive attack on the public sector. Within this line of the Schedule, the fact that we no longer have an ACT Treasury or a Department of Public Administration says all you need to know about the Government's attitude to the public sector. Mr Speaker, I think that any government that appears embarrassed to have as a discrete entity a treasury department which advises it on financial management and budgetary matters really needs a hard lesson in how to govern.

I believe that the public sector in the ACT has done a very good job over recent years, over the years since self-government. The public sector has been required to be ever more efficient. Year by year they have had their funding reduced. If you look at the expenditure by the ACT, you will see that there are real reductions in expenditure. That has been achieved, of course, by the public sector. This Government has taken a whole new approach to the public sector and virtually says, "We do not need you at all. Wherever we can, we will contract your functions out to the private sector". Mr De Domenico has said that virtually in those words. Mr Speaker, I am a great supporter of the public sector, just as I am a great supporter of an apolitical and independent public service. Clearly, that is not what we are getting from the Liberal Government. That should not surprise anybody. That is a traditional Liberal stance that we are seeing from Mrs Carnell, just as we did from Mr Kennett. Mrs Thatcher also had the same sort of approach. The fact of the matter is that neither the public sector as employees nor the community that they are employed to serve is any the better for these radical changes. I think it is a great shame.

Mr Speaker, it would have been far preferable for Mrs Carnell to retain the Treasury and Department of Public Administration as separate areas of reporting. I believe that the budget documentation and the Estimates Committee work would have been far easier had that been the case. Mr Speaker, there are many other aspects of this department and its appropriation that I want to speak to. I might just ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker. Can I speak more than once on this issue?

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