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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1287 ..

Mr Berry: I seek leave to table a document - - -

MR SPEAKER: No; I have people who wish to ask questions.

Mr Berry: It is a copy of the Canberra Times - - -

MR SPEAKER: You may do it at the end of question time if the Assembly grants leave, but not at the moment.

Mr Berry: I could get leave now.

MR SPEAKER: Does somebody wish to ask a question? I call Mr Osborne.

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the Chief Minister and is about executive salaries. Recently, Mrs Carnell, in response to a question on notice, I received a copy of the salaries of the ACT senior public servants since 1995. Some of those chief executives have had increases of as much as 75 per cent while the lowest paid in their departments have had increases of only about 4 per cent. While no-one denies that our top public servants are entitled to decent salaries, surely there comes a time when that line of decency is crossed. Now we know that in ACTEW, for example, the chief executive's salary potentially is worth 10 ASO2s. Do you agree that, if we have not crossed that line already, we are getting very close?

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Osborne, for the question, because I think it is really important to clarify a few issues here. One is that our senior public servants have not had an increase for 12 months. In fact, Mr Speaker, this has tended to run as if somehow our senior public servants have ended up with increases very recently, and that simply has not been the case. Our senior public servants put in a submission to the Remuneration Tribunal this year suggesting that they should not have an increase this year because the economic situation was fairly bad. I think that is an incredibly appropriate approach. I am not sure whether any other public servants around this country would have taken the same approach, but I was very proud of them for taking that approach.

Mr Speaker, I think it is very important here to understand how public servants' salaries, the ones that Mr Osborne is talking about, are set. They are set by an independent Remuneration Tribunal that was put into legislation by this house. The legislation went through this place. It is the same Remuneration Tribunal that sets our salaries. We have always believed, certainly this side of the house has always believed, that senior public servants and politicians should not have the power to set their own salaries; that the salaries should be set at arm's length from people who are in those sorts of positions.

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