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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2614 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

There is a bias inherent in this report, Mr Speaker, that I believe is unacceptable. I will quote from paragraph 5.3 the last sentence:

The committee poses the question as to how the public interest, as distinct from that of the Government of the day, will be enhanced by removing tenure and obscuring the transparency of the employment contracts for executives.

It posed the question, but it did not get an answer. I decided that the report could not be amended to suit me. When I was going through it and trying to amend it to make it suit my personal view and what I heard in the evidence, I was going to suggest the addition of these words: "But the two points of view expressed to the committee by public officials on the one hand and the CPSU on the other did not provide an answer". If that had been said it would have been an objective statement; but, because it is left open, the implication is that the committee posed the question and nobody could answer it. That is a totally biased impression to try to convey in a committee report. I seek a short extension of time, Mr Speaker. I am going to need it, I think.

MR SPEAKER: It is all right. You still have a couple of minutes, Mr Kaine.

MR KAINE: Thank you. The Leader of the Opposition, the chair of this committee, claims that people who gave evidence before the committee were asked to justify the legislation - what were the reasons for it; why was it necessary to have this legislation; why could it not be done by administrative action - and that they failed to answer. Mr Speaker, that is not true. I quote from page 8 of the transcript of the one public hearing we had. The question, a leading question from the chair, was:

Can I just ask what evidence any of you have got that the current ACT SES is not performing its duties to the sort of level that would be expected of them by Government?

That sort of question, in a number of different disguises, was asked at different times through the hearing.

Ms Follett: I never got an answer.

MR KAINE: The chair says they were given the opportunity to answer it and they did not. I read from the transcript, from the same page, where Mr Walker said:

I would not have said that any of our comments reflect on the performance of the current public service. Our comments reflect on the capacity to improve and enhance the capacity of the public service to perform and that is what this proposed legislative change is about.

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