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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1055 ..

MR SPEAKER: Have you got all that, Chief Minister?

Mr Humphries: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Corbell wants to know how many jobs the Chief Minister thinks at the end of the day are going to go, with some hypothetical figures. If Mr Corbell is asking what we think will happen at the end of the financial year, given a certain proposed number of dollars available, then it is a hypothetical question. If he is asking whether a certain amount equates to a certain number of jobs, then he is posing a question and asking for an opinion from the Chief Minister.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I uphold the point of order that the question about how many jobs might or might not go is hypothetical and therefore is out of order. The other part of Mr Corbell's supplementary I think referred, Mr Corbell, to an amount of money from another source; is that correct?

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister seemed entirely willing to give us an estimate of the amount of money she would spend on the redundancies, but she is not willing to give us an estimate of how many jobs that will result in. The other part of the question was: Is it true that agencies are funding additional redundancies out of their own budgets and not out of the central pool?

MR SPEAKER: That you can now respond to, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: I can answer that, Mr Speaker. Redundancies are able to be funded out of departmental budgets. They always have been. When they do not comply with our rules on redundancy - and that is that the job cannot be backfilled, that it is a real benefit to the ACT Government and so on - then a redundancy can be funded out of a departmental budget, but obviously within budget. It has to be funded within budget. I do not have any idea at this stage, because we are a quite long way away from the end of the financial year, what our work force data will look like.

Mr Corbell: Why do you not go and ask?

MRS CARNELL: As those opposite know, our work force data is provided to this place, and it will be provided at the end of the financial year.

Mr Corbell: It is going to be pretty embarrassing, from the sound of it.

Ms McRae: Very touchy, we are.

MRS CARNELL: It is very easy for them to see the figures. Mr Speaker, it is really hard for me to yell today.

MR SPEAKER: If they are not terribly interested and they wish to keep interjecting, I suggest that you sit down, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

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