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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 498 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

There are a number of themes behind our public sector reform. These themes are customer service, improving productivity, transparency, and improved performance and accountability. The executive contracts provide a mechanism for improved performance and accountability at the senior level and thereby build a performance culture throughout the whole ACT Public Service. Such a performance culture will considerably enhance the ACT Public Service focus on service delivery to the people of the Territory. These contracts spell out exactly what the executive's job is, and they are linked directly to our financial reforms. They detail the outputs to be delivered against specific outcomes. The level of performance the executive is expected to attain is also clearly set out and will frequently be measured and assessed against meaningful performance indicators.

I am pleased to present this first set of contracts, which mark the commencement of a new era in the Public Service. I look forward to finalising executive contract arrangements so that the responsibility and accountability can be clearly established. Today I present six contracts, each for an officer in the Chief Minister's Department. One deals with the employment of the chief executive, two with the employment of executives, and three are for temporary performance of executive officers. I will present other contracts as they are made.

Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, I am able to provide only one copy of each of these contracts. That is because a group of people picketing this building intimidated, both verbally and physically, staff of the Chief Minister's Department who were attempting to deliver copies of the contracts this morning. I think it is a matter of some concern for all Assembly members that the operation of this place is being disrupted by what can be described only as the bullying tactics of the picketers. Finally, I would like to alert members to the issue of privacy of personal information that may be in the contracts or the performance agreements. I ask that members deal sensitively with the information contained in these documents and respect the privacy of individual executives.

MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (3.19): I would like to speak on the matter very briefly, Mr Speaker, just to respond to the quite scandalous allegations Mrs Carnell has made about the actions of people who are staffing a peaceful picket. Mrs Carnell may be unaware of the provisions of a goods and services picket, but I will tell her that a goods and services picket is a legitimate form of protest by people exercising their democratic right to object to the treatment being meted out to them by their employer, and that is what is happening. The picketers have every right to be there on a picket. Mrs Carnell has sought throughout this industrial dispute to provoke a confrontationist attitude, and to accuse picketers of bullying, of intimidation, I believe, is further provocation. I repeat that people taking industrial action have every right to do so in our democratic society.

Mrs Carnell: Yes, they do, but not to intimidate.

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