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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 3 Hansard (27 May) . . Page.. 625 ..
MR BERRY (continuing):
Basically, the only argument that has been put forward is user pays; that is, if you use a service such as a police check, you should pay for it yourself. You are sadly mistaken, Minister. The employee does not use the service. He gives permission to the employer to carry out the police check. The employer carries out the police check.
It is, as Mr Rugendyke properly says, a normal recruitment cost that ought to be borne by the employer in all cases. It is not sufficient justification to say that an unfair and unreasonable cost imposed in another State is one that we should adopt here. It is demonstrably unfair and unreasonable. I go back to my earlier comments. If you say that this is fair and reasonable, then you are saying by implication that it is unfair and unreasonable for other people to escape this cost. That is the message you are sending to all of your other departments. That is the message you are sending to the private sector - that it is fair and reasonable to transmit to your employees an administrative cost of this order, or larger in the case of a recruitment process.
Another matter that I raise is something that I raised earlier on when I introduced this motion. You do not charge high-flying executives the $20,000 or $30,000 that it costs you to recruit them. You do not even try. It costs tens of thousands of dollars. I am not suggesting that you should. That is an administrative cost. It is an administrative cost that many of them could afford, but I can tell you now that a lot of working people who apply for these jobs cannot afford the $25. I met one last Friday night. I will bet that if I have met one there are dozens of others in the same sort of position. I am not prepared to sit idly by and see these sorts of unfair and unreasonable imposts being put on the most disadvantaged people in the community, the least advantaged and the people least able to pay. I urge my colleagues in this place to ensure that they do not support this position that is adopted by the Government, and I urge them to support my motion.
Question put:
That the motion (Mr Berry's) be agreed to.
The Assembly voted -
AYES, 7 NOES, 7 Mr Berry Mr Cornwell Mr Hargreaves Mr Hird Mr Osborne Mr Humphries Mr Quinlan Mr Kaine Mr Stanhope Mr Rugendyke Ms Tucker Mr Smyth Mr Wood Mr StefaniakQuestion so resolved in the negative, in accordance with standing order 162.
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