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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 979 ..

Under the CIT Act the director's appointment can be terminated only for misbehaviour, -

that is a pretty big one; misbehaviour covers a lot of ground, I would think -

physical or mental incapacity, bankruptcy, unapproved absence from duty, or imprisonment for one year or more.

I reckon that, if you have a look at that little list, you just about have them all. If somebody does not perform their duties properly, their services can be dispensed with in a very non-political way. Of course, the person employed under those sorts of arrangements would have recourse to the law if he felt that any of those conditions had been breached in the course of a termination.

But, Mr Speaker, you cannot avoid turning to the debate on the politicisation of the Public Service when you consider the Government's history in relation to the Public Sector Management Act. This Act has, as its origin, an intent for the Government to have its own groupies in the Public Service. Mr Speaker, I trust that there are many out there who resist the temptation. But, if you have that feeling filtering down in the Public Service, you do not get the sort of public service that I think this city deserves; that is, a public service which can advise the Government and give the Government advice it does not want to hear, on occasions, without fear that the giving of that advice will cause them any difficulty in terms of their employment.

So, Mr Speaker, we oppose the Bill, for all of those reasons and for many of the reasons which were enunciated in the earlier debate over the Public Sector Management Act, which I will not go to because there was a considerable debate about the issue. But I go back to my earlier statement. The most important issue about this entire debate over changes to the Public Sector Management Act was revealed in the comment made by my former Labor colleague, Terry Connolly - I think he was drawing attention to Mrs Carnell and the old adage, "The buck stops here" - that what the Government wanted to do was make sure that "the buck stopped there". Mr Speaker, this change to the CIT Act has in it much of the ideological direction of the Liberals opposite that we are here to oppose.

MS TUCKER (11.32): The Greens will not be supporting this Bill. We will be consistent with how we voted on the Public Sector Management Bill in 1995. There are, as I said then, good reasons for some cultural and administrative changes in the public sector; but, as I said in December 1995 when we debated that Bill, the Greens are concerned that this Government's response - and the Federal Government's response, I understand, too - to a need for change is much more about ideology than about careful consideration of the issues.

We are still concerned at the increase in salaries associated with contracts for executives. The gap between rich and poor in our society is, indeed, still a problem. Extra salary was seen to be appropriate because of the loss of tenure; but what about the downsizing of the public sector? How many ex-public servants are now thrust into the private sector to compete for contracts? They are not getting compensated for loss of tenure. Concerns about privatisation and possible further politicisation of the bureaucracy are still very real, as they were when we first debated this issue.

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