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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3824 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Can the Chief Minister explain to the Assembly where, in fact, the authority for executive TAA payments lies - in the contracts or elsewhere?

MS CARNELL: It is unusual, I would have thought, for somebody who has a legal background not to understand that, but I will take it very - - -

Mr Quinlan: It is that bad, is it?

MS CARNELL: Actually, it is really simple. Mr Speaker, the employing authority is the Public Sector Management Act. We all know that because in 1994 that Act was passed in this chamber. It refers, of course, to the contract as governing employment. The contract, in turn, refers to other sources of entitlements, such as the Remuneration Tribunal determinations and the public sector management standards. It is correct to say that these are contractual entitlements. It is also correct to say that the source of the entitlement is not found in the written contract itself. The issue that was raised in Mr Corbell's media release of, I think, 2 December 1999 is simply a matter of terminology.

Mr Stanhope: That is what Bjelke-Petersen would say. The hospital did not blow up; it is just terminology.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Chief Minister is answering your question, Mr Stanhope. The least you can do is show her the courtesy of being silent.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, in the written contracts there are no referrals to the actual allowances involved because the public sector management standards run under the contracts and they are all in line with the Act. That is quite simple. It is the way that employment contracts work all the time. The contracts do not say that Joe Blow is getting $X as a relocation allowance. The fact is that somebody who signs a contract must be employed under the Public Sector Management Act as passed by this place and also must be employed under the public sector management standards and more recently - for contracts signed after, I think, April 1998 - under the provisions of the Remuneration Tribunal. But none of those things is actually spelt out in the contract, which I think is the normal or standard approach to employment contracts. Employment contracts do not spell out, say, the whole of the legislation, industrial relations agreement or whatever that the contracts are written against, simply because it is taken as read that an employment contract must be in line with the Public Sector Management Act, the standards and the Remuneration Tribunal. It is quite simple.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Stanhope?

MR STANHOPE: Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Chief Minister for that quite simple answer. The Chief Minister, in her rebuttal in the Canberra Times of 2 December, stated that "the staff were entitled to the payments under public-sector guidelines put in place by the former Labor government in 1994". The guidelines that applied in 1994 provide for TAA to be paid for a maximum of three years, with an extension only in special circumstances. Four of the seven executives named in the

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