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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 11 Hansard (14 December) . . Page.. 3083 ..

MR SPEAKER: Is leave granted for the Chief Minister to make a statement?

Mr Berry: Give us an idea of how long you are going to be; that is all.

MRS CARNELL: About five minutes.

Mr Berry: That is all that I am worried about.

Leave granted.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, as you will see from this statement, all of the items of payment to Mr Walker are in line with the public sector management standards. As we would know, the public sector management standards were passed and put in place by the previous Government. As Ms Follett particularly would know, and I assume everyone in this Assembly would know, the public sector management standards are not approved by the government of the day. They are in place.

The entitlements under those public sector management standards are approved by the commissioner; in this case, Ms Maureen Cane. In fact, they do not come to the Government at all for approval. All of these have been approved by the appropriate public servant, the commissioner; in this case, Ms Maureen Cane. They are in line with the public sector management standards put in place, as I said, by the previous Government.

If the previous Government does not like its own public sector management standards, then it jolly well should not have put them in place to start with.

Mr Berry: You sound pretty nervous, Mrs Carnell.

MRS CARNELL: I am not. The precedent that this sets, in asking for this information to be tabled in the Assembly, is very unfortunate.

When I said that I would comply with Mr Berry's motion I said that I would also table information on similar circumstances with regard to others, such as Ms Cheryl Vardon. I am not going to do that, simply because I would be creating a precedent by doing so. I do not think that it is at all appropriate. Here is what the Assembly has asked for. I will not be tabling the information about other public servants, because there is an enormous list. Obviously, these are the public sector management standards; they are appropriate; and they apply to all public servants who fall under the Act. To look at just a couple of examples would be extraordinarily unfair and something that I certainly will not be doing.

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