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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 2820 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

On the question of whether our contracts should be public or not, there are a number of issues. Confidentiality will be important to executives from other States seeking positions on contract. Publication of such contracts in the ACT will act as a significant deterrent to this mobility. Contracts are essentially administrative mechanisms to ensure the outputs required. The Ministers and the chief executives remain publicly responsible for their organisations. Publication raises the spectre of unwanted political intrusion into the administrative processes, not the overall output. This spectre will significantly limit the detail contained in any arrangement. I think Mr Moore said that very well earlier on. The last thing we want is a situation where the contracts are somehow watered down simply because they need to be tabled in this place. Finally on this point, I believe that we expect our managers to manage. This they should be able to do within a broad agreed political framework. Release of contracts would work against this, in our view. Having said that, I believe that chief executives and executives should have the right to make them public or be satisfied that there is an appropriate release process if it is necessary in the community or political context.

Much has been said in recent days about the Government's approach to sticking to its commitments. It is time that, as an Assembly, we reflected on the question of how consistent and how fair dinkum are the policies and previous pronouncements of a number of parties and individuals. We have made it abundantly clear in opposition, during the election campaign and now that this is what we support. In fact, I have here a Canberra Times article on an interview with me, dated 2 March this year, headed "Public Service Bosses on Contract". It is not exactly something that was kept secret during the election campaign or after the election campaign or, for that matter, last year when we were discussing Ms Follett's Public Sector Management Bill.

Ms Follett now wants us to blindly follow the Commonwealth, as she said in her speech, to continue to be disciples of the Commonwealth. This has not always, interestingly, been the view of Ms Follett, has it? In a submission in August 1993 to the Assembly committee, Ms Follett waxed not lyrical, I must say, but certainly long on the need to seize the opportunities presented by self-government to move to a new and more appropriate form of government. Hear, hear! I would like to quote Ms Follett's words. She said:

The self-governing ACT, because it is relatively unfettered by the status of entrenched practice, has a unique opportunity to shape a machinery of Government suited to its own needs and purposes ...

I agree absolutely. She said that the public service, "will not be a smaller version of the Australian public service". She also said:

The ACTGS will be tailored to the needs of the ACT, not the Commonwealth, and will extend to a review of structures, management and culture as well as new legislation defining the characteristics of the ACT public service.

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