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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 31 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

The fact is, Mr Speaker, that this is a problem which has been there ever since she brought down her budget last year. She has taken all the efficiency savings anywhere in the ACT Government Service for herself, put them into the bottom line and said, "They are mine. If you want a pay increase, you have to give up some jobs".

Mr Speaker, the way to negotiate pay increases under enterprise bargaining is by negotiating improvements in efficiency and sharing the proceeds.

Mrs Carnell: Absolutely. Hear, hear!

MR WHITECROSS: Mrs Carnell, do you understand the words - sharing improvements with the workers? That is not what you are doing. What you are doing is taking the savings you get from those efficiencies, putting them in your own pocket, and then turning around to the ACT community and saying, "If we give these people a pay increase, it is not going to come out of my pocket; it is not going to come out of the savings - - -

Mrs Carnell: That is because I do not have a pocket. The only pocket we have is the taxpayer's.

MR WHITECROSS: Yes, you do, Mrs Carnell. You do not want to pay for them out of the savings from the IT review, or the savings from all these things; you want to pay for them out of either tax increases or sacking workers. It is not good enough, Mrs Carnell. Get your act together.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

Debate interrupted.

MS FOLLETT: I address a question without notice to the Chief Minister. Mrs Carnell, why has the Government not appointed the ACT Remuneration Tribunal, especially given that the legislation establishing that tribunal was passed in this Assembly as a matter of some urgency in December 1995, well over two months ago? Why has the tribunal not been appointed, and how many determinations have you made under section 14 of the Remuneration Tribunal Act, as a substitute tribunal?

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much for that question. In fact, the Remuneration Tribunal submission went through Cabinet yesterday. As Ms Follett would know, over the Christmas break we had a deal of difficulty in getting in touch with a couple of the people we were after.

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