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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2618 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The Government - surprise, surprise - also does not support recommendation 2 of the committee, which reads:

The committee recommends that existing chief executives have the option of retaining their tenure or changing to contract employment.

The Government believes that the improvement in performance and accountability that this whole Bill is based upon would not be achieved if there were some people on contracts and some people not on contracts. The whole basis of this improvement is that everybody goes onto contracts, right from chief executives, all the way - - -

Ms Follett: Everybody? What about the ones you are sacking?

MRS CARNELL: Everyone at senior executive level. Everyone who gets a contract.

Ms Follett: Everyone who does not get sacked.

MRS CARNELL: Nobody gets sacked.

Ms Follett: Really?

MRS CARNELL: Absolutely. What we are talking about here is a requirement for everybody in the Senior Executive Service, in senior management, to understand exactly what the requirements are of their immediate manager. That means that there will be contractual arrangements between Ministers and their chief executives and between chief executives and their senior managers. To break down that chain at any place - in other words, to have some people on performance-based contracts and some people not on them - would simply break down the whole management structure. This is just a ridiculous recommendation that shows that Ms Follett does not understand how organisations such as the public service could become better, could become more efficient, could improve services to the community and improve usage of public money, and that is what this is about.

Again, the Government does not accept recommendation 3. That recommendation says:

Noting the flexibility within the existing employment arrangements for senior executive officers, the committee recommends that there be no change to the method of employing such officers.

Current employment arrangements do not provide for fully-fledged or legally binding performance contracts. Ms Follett said earlier that there was capacity for fixed term contracts. If Ms Follett thinks fixed term contracts are the same as performance-based contracts, it shows a really big gap in her understanding. A fixed term contract just means that the contract finishes at a particular time. There are no requirements for performance during that period. In other words, the whole efficiency improvements are not part of fixed term contracts. What we are looking for here is fully-fledged and legally binding performance contracts. Again, only by employing all executives on performance contracts will we achieve the sort of flowthrough effects that we believe we can achieve. We see other States having achieved those sorts of things.

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