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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (13 February) . . Page.. 77 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, that is funny because I seem to recall someone on your side of the chamber referring to Australian Federal Police as "Constable Plods" and "Keystone cops".

Mr Hargreaves: They are not public servants. They are contractors. They are contract employees, Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: Ah, they are not public servants.

Mr Hargreaves: You know the difference. You have Gary-ed yourself. Thy have Gary-ed thyself.

MR HUMPHRIES: Right, Mr Deputy Speaker, they are not public servants. Funny, I thought that they were public servants under the Australian Federal Police Act.

Mr Hargreaves: You have a contract, a private contract, with them. The ultimate piece of privatisation. The ultimate privatisation.

MR HUMPHRIES: I did not say that people had bashed only ACT public servants, Mr Hargreaves. I said "bashed public servants".

Mr Hargreaves: Yes, you did.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I did not. Go back and check the Hansard.

Mr Hargreaves: Oh, let us be semantic. Let us play semantics.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Humphries, will you address the chair.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker. So if you want to have a debate, I can produce quotes and I can indicate to you what you have said, Mr Hargreaves, about public servants, and believe me they are not very flattering.

Mr Hargreaves: I haven't sacked them.

MR HUMPHRIES: You will, I am sure, if you ever get back into office, based on what Mr Quinlan and Mr Berry said earlier today.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the fact remains that we have sought today in this debate to reinforce above anything else in this debate the value that the ACT has in its public service. Despite the things that we say in this place, whether we perhaps mean it with hindsight or not, we have an excellent ACT public service, people who deliver in difficult circumstances and who deliver to a very high standard.

I met a former ACT public servant who joined the Commonwealth not very long ago and I asked her about the comparison between working in the Department of Justice and Community Safety in the ACT versus the Commonwealth public service. She said, "Look, there have been lots of good and bad points about the move but it is certainly clear that I have a much, much narrower range of responsibilities in the Commonwealth public service than I ever did in the ACT public service." She was

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