Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3241 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Mr Moore is quite right when he talks about a government bringing down its budget. The Chief Minister alluded to a convention which would be breached if Mr Berry's motion were passed in full, because it would be calling upon the Government to put in moneys over and above what has been allocated. There is a very strong convention in relation to that, and Mr Moore is quite correct. Mr Berry, if you have some bright ideas about how we are to fund this, let us see them. Put them on the table.

Amendment agreed to.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (4.10): Mr Speaker, I move:

Paragraph (2), omit "organisations should not be penalised", substitute "the Government should take all reasonable steps to ensure that organisations are not unduly disadvantaged".

I will move my amendments separately, as I understand Ms Tucker wants to support one but not the other. I think I made clear before the reason for the approach that we are taking here. I would just like to answer a point that Ms Tucker put forward in her speech. Ms Tucker indicated that we did not have a strategy in place for the implementation of the SACS award. Quite the contrary. We do have a very definite strategy in place. It started with employing KPMG to do a consultancy in the whole area to determine the best way to implement the SACS award, and we have put that in place.

The basis of that implementation was to ensure that there was money in the budget for implementation, which there has been for both of the last two years, and to put in place a plan to work with organisations to help them implement the SACS award from the perspective of how to operate efficiently under an award to minimise the extra cost of an award and, where necessary, supplement them. It is a very definite, very directional, very on-the-ground sort of strategy. I very firmly say that we do have a strategy. It might not be the one that Ms Tucker would like us to have, but it is achieving quite good outcomes for organisations that have been through it.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (4.11): In speaking to the amendment, I raise some points which were first raised by Mr Kaine. Mr Kaine referred to paragraph (2) of the motion and talked about employees being penalised. That was never the text of the motion. The motion clearly reads:

Further, this Assembly believes that organisations should not be penalised by the implementation of a common rule award ...

Mrs Carnell: We could not understand what "penalised" meant, whether it meant there was some sort of legal penalty.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell asks, "What does that mean?". It means, essentially, that the implementation of a common rule award should not be a penalty on the funds of the organisations. It says that they should not be penalised by the implementation of a common rule award.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .