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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2619 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Again, the Government does not accept recommendation 4, which is not supported by the argument in the committee's report anyway. The committee's report does not even argue, it seems, for recommendation 4, or does not do so very well. Further, I believe it is the role of the ACT jurisdiction, not any other, to make policy decisions in this area and to sponsor the necessary legislation through the Assembly. In other words, it is our decision as to how our Remuneration Tribunal works, whether it is our Remuneration Tribunal or the Commonwealth's. For the life of me, I do not understand why we would seek the views of the Commonwealth Government, or the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal, on what we believe is most appropriate for the ACT.

The comment was made by Ms Follett that the defence of the senior public servants who appeared before the committee was less than robust. I find that fascinating. Having read the submission that was put forward by the Government, sponsored by those senior public servants, and knowing well their views on this, I definitely doubt Ms Follett's comments in that area. One of the issues that she raised related to frank and fearless advice. The way to make sure that there can be frank and fearless advice is to have a performance contract. If you are inside the performance contract your advice has to be frank and fearless because you have to produce the goods. If you do not produce the goods there is a problem. If you are producing what is in that performance-based contract the advice has to be frank and fearless to achieve an end, not a political means. That is the whole basis of this approach. (Extension of time granted)

I think the area where the committee missed most badly, though, was in trying to equate the ACT public service with the Commonwealth Public Service, and somehow assuming that the State public services were irrelevant to the argument. The fact is that the ACT public service is a service deliverer. That is basically what we are here for - to deliver services to the community; to make sure that services are provided to the community that they pay taxes for, and to make sure that we have a government that works. The Commonwealth is much more of a policy-related arena. It simply does not work the same way as a State-based operation. I find it fascinating that the committee did not even bother asking, as Mr Kaine already said, a number of people from the States who have had an extraordinary amount of experience in this sort of area.

Ms Follett: We did. They did not have time.

MRS CARNELL: I can guarantee, Ms Follett, that we could have ensured that you had some of these people available for you if you had bothered to ask. The reality is that other States, both Liberal and Labor, have been through this whole process.

Mr Berry: But you said that you cannot compare it to other States.

MRS CARNELL: No, I said you could compare it with other States, not with the Commonwealth. The other States are much more in line with the sort of public service that we should have, and are starting to have, in the ACT. I think that that is where the committee really fell down. To assume that the ACT is somehow like the Commonwealth and not like State public services, not like public services in other municipalities, simply is missing the point of what we are here to do in this Assembly.

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