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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2560 ..

Mr Osborne: No doubt better, obviously.

MR MOORE: Mr Osborne interjects, "No doubt better, obviously better". We have certainly heard quite a number of people argue that.

Mr Speaker, associated with the notion of Leader of the Opposition is the issue, which Mr Berry raised by way of interjection, of salary and salary allocation. It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that if what we are interested in from an opposition is the sorts of things that Ms Tucker talked about, in terms of scrutiny, monitoring the government, petitioning - the range of tasks that we all do - then we could get the tasks done better if there were a more even distribution of the funds. I think that is a perfectly reasonable and perfectly good idea.

In fact, Mr Speaker, I looked at what would happen if we took away the position of Leader of the Opposition and allocated the money on an equal basis to what Mr Osborne and I currently get as a staff allocation. The reality is, Mr Speaker, that, if we did that, Mr Osborne and I would not be better off; Ms Tucker and the Greens would be a touch better off; but the Labor Party would no doubt be worse off, and rightly so. What does the Leader of the Opposition do that the others of us do not do? Why does the Leader of the Opposition have all this extra funding, and what the hell does he do with it? I think that is a reasonable question to ask.

There are two principles tied up in this, Mr Speaker, as I see it. First of all, non-Executive members ought to be paid equal amounts for staffing allocation, so that each member can get on and do the job to the best of their ability. That is what I think is the most important principle. By the way, Mr Speaker, I have been arguing that for a long time, although I have been outnumbered on that basis. Secondly, members should be able to allocate their staff to suit themselves when they are in parties, so that the parties get a major advantage. We have already seen Ms Tucker and Ms Horodny do that with their allocations. They combined them to get a receptionist.

Probably what the Labor Party are concerned about is that they would have trouble if they were each allocated the same amount of money. They probably would hold onto it, rather than pass it on to the Leader of the Opposition. There is a very good reason for that. It is that each member would know that they could do a better job if they had better staffing. Instead of it all being concentrated in one spot, we would have a much better arrangement in terms of scrutiny of the government - which is, after all, what opposition should be about. It should not be about the Leader of the Opposition; it should be about scrutiny of the government. It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that that is a very sensible thing.

I heard some sensible comments by Mr Osborne, who said, "No, it is not time to do this just yet. First of all, we should not do it piecemeal. We should do it within the whole context of giving Canberra a better and more cooperative system of government, and a system that works better". I do not agree with that approach, Mr Speaker. I do not disagree with that as the end goal. In fact, like those in Mr Osborne's office, I also have been working on some areas of how to bring about change - as have Mrs Carnell and, I think, Ms Tucker - even though that will make us a social laboratory.

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