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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2561 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: If you believe that someone is being coerced to take out an AWA, you produce that person. Mr Speaker, I think we will have a deafening silence on that score.

As at 20 June this year 356 ACT government employees had taken up AWAs with the government and a further 55 were pending the approval of the Office of the Employment Advocate. Those AWAs provided a wide range of benefits to employees in the public sector-retention/attraction bonuses, skill enhancement bonuses, bushfire season allowances, clinical targeting bonuses, in-charge allowances, project completion bonuses, on-call allowances and so on.

Mr Stanhope: Do you reckon the person who measured the eastern route will get a bonus?

MR SPEAKER: Order, please!

Mr Stanhope: Will the person who measured the eastern route get a bonus?

MR SPEAKER: I warn you, Mr Stanhope.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, it is interesting that about two-thirds of these bonuses were available to professional staff in the health services area, including nurses, dentists and special staff in the ACT. AWAs are a very useful tool to attract staff and retain staff in areas where otherwise there is the likelihood of staff losses or heavy staff turnover. That is why the flexibility of an AWA is important. That is why you need to be able to say to a particular category of workers, "We value your skills particularly highly at this time. We want to see you receive benefits in order to retain you as staff on our payroll."

There are other benefits-access to flexible salary packaging arrangements, enhanced increment points to reward high performance or skills levels, additional leave, and additional pay. The total value of benefits offered to ACT government employees is about $1 million.

I am astonished that we have a Labor government in waiting telling us we are going to abolish $1 million worth of benefits to ACT government employees. Of course, as the number of AWAs multiplies over time, which I believe will be the case if the legislation is in place to allow that to happen, more workers in the ACT government service will receive those benefits. It is not just a case of saying, "We like the cut of your jib, we are going to give you extra dollars." It is a case of saying, "We see a need to manage our workforce in such a way that we target areas of deficiency and we put dollars in places where those deficiencies might otherwise arise." It is very important that we retain key staff.

MRS BURKE: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Chief Minister, in light of your answer, can you advise whether the ability to operate AWAs with such good benefits has contributed greatly to the retention of key staff?

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Mrs Burke for that question. Mr Speaker, the evidence is that there has been very considerable improvement in the retention capacity in the public service as a result of that. We have been able to retain staff in key areas as a result. We

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