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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 24 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Let me make one point, finally, Mr Speaker, about this motion before us today. This motion is, substantially, a motion of censure of the ACT Government, particularly the Chief Minister and the Minister for Industrial Relations. This is the fourth censure motion that has been moved on the floor of this chamber in the last nine sitting days of the Assembly.

Ms Follett: Well, pick up your act.

MR HUMPHRIES: They were not all against us. There was one against you, Ms Follett. Mr Speaker, let me make the point - I have made this point before and I will make it again - that it becomes very easy, after a while, when in a fit of pique, simply to censure the Government.

Mr Berry: So we should not do it to you? Ha, ha!

MR HUMPHRIES: Not at all. No, by all means, governments ought to be censured when the occasion arises; but if it happens on a weekly basis, every time the Assembly sits, it loses, from your point of view as an opposition or as a crossbencher wanting to make a point to the Government, its value. The first couple got on the front page of the Canberra Times. If this one slips to page two, or three, or four, you will start to see a decline in the value of that as a tool to make the Government sit up and pay attention.

Mr Speaker, a lot of claims have been made about executive salaries. The Greens were saying that we should be translating some of the money that we are spending on executive salaries into wage increases elsewhere. I might point out that there is a net saving from the Government's restructuring of SES salaries of $1m.

Ms Tucker: Yes, because you have cut jobs. That is productivity!

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, that is right. We have made the senior levels more streamlined and have fewer positions at that level. We make no apologies for that. This is part of the process of making sure that the system operates effectively and efficiently. Mr Speaker, let me also make the point that that $1m saving we have made on SES positions is going into this pay offer we have made already to the trade union movement. The money we have saved at senior levels of the Government Service is going into that pay rise for people at lower levels.

Ms Tucker, I think, made the point that people on low incomes find it very hard to meet costs like contributions to government schools and things like that, but this pay demand of 9 per cent by the trade union movement is not about helping just those on low incomes. It is about a whole range of salaries in the ACT Government Service. Mr Speaker, let me say on behalf of the Government that if the trade union members came back and said, "We would like to reorganise our request and tailor it for those on lower incomes, not giving 9 per cent rises - - -

Ms Tucker: Have you suggested that?

MR HUMPHRIES: They have not raised the issue before.

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