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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 738 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

that language! I am not worried about what you have to say about this matter. I am very pleased about it and I would encourage you warmly to continue with that line of attack.

Mr Speaker, you could almost hear the violins behind Mr Berry as he spoke a moment ago. He spoke of the long and faithful service of these workers and the attacks by the Liberal government on those workers, of how we are undervaluing the service they provide, of how we obviously despise the contribution they have made to the ACT over many years, citing their medals and awards with respect to bush fire services in the ACT. Mr Speaker, all of that would ring rather truer-it would sound plausible, almost-if it were not for the record that Mr Berry and his colleagues themselves have in government when it comes to the issue of wages and their positions.

Need I remind the Assembly, Mr Speaker, that it was not very many years ago that Mr Berry and his colleagues brought to this place a budget to provide for $17 million worth of redundancies in the ACT public service. Mr Berry, were any of the people who were made redundant at that time by virtue of that program people who had given long and faithful service to the ACT?

Mr Berry: No involuntary ones.

MR HUMPHRIES: Our intention also is that they not be involuntary. That is also our intention, as Mr Smyth has made quite clear. We will do our best to ensure that everybody who takes these redundancies does so willingly and accepts that money on that basis. Was the value of those workers that the territory was dispensing with in the days that you were in office any less than the value of these forestry workers?

Mr Berry: There were no involuntary ones.

MR HUMPHRIES: You avoid the questions, Mr Berry. I will answer that question for you. No, there was no less value in those workers. They were workers who had put in diligent service to the ACT but, as Mr Kaine has made reflection, we did not have the capacity as a territory any longer-

Mr Berry: No involuntary ones.

MR HUMPHRIES: I heard that point several times, Mr Berry.

MR SPEAKER: Stop interjecting. You will have a chance to respond when you close the debate, Mr Berry.

MR HUMPHRIES: The thousands of workers, as I recall, whose services you dispensed with were workers who had also given valued service to this community, but we did not have the capacity as a territory to sustain a work force of that size any more. You knew that and we know it now. We have worked hard to address the territory's budget position, in particular the budget operating loss, and we have had to do that by making some decisions, including one on the size of our work force.

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