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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3602 ..

Mr Moore: It is a good reason.

MR OSBORNE: It is a good reason. I will use it. I am going to use it sometime too, I think. If someone else comes up with a better idea, I am not going to support it. How pathetic! Nevertheless, we persevered with Mr Berry. We persevered with the union. I will keep talking until Mr Stanhope has the courage to come down and tell us why he is not supporting this legislation.

We sought advice from the union movement. I also heard a whisper that one of the excuses the Leader of the Opposition was going to give was that he was going to come to some agreement with the TLC on changes to the public service after the election, which Mr Berry ever so quietly mentioned. I have come to agreement with them too, Mr Speaker. They have agreed to support my bill with all the changes. We have circulated amendments which take care of many of the criticisms that some people have expressed today.

Advice given to me by way of the media was that Jon Stanhope's office were opposed to this only because they did not think of it first. They actually think it is a good idea. I am hoping that they will see some sense in the time Mr Stanhope has to get down here and let us know why he is not supporting the legislation.

There is clearly a level of arrogance by some members of the Labor Party at the moment. We have all heard about the polling. We all know that the Labor Party is way in front. We can all assume that the Labor Party is going to win and be in office next time. The policy coming out from this side is non-existent.

Jon Stanhope has spent the last three years criticising this government, criticising the senior levels of the public service at times too. The reality is that those in the leadership of the Labor Party are starting to think, "Hang on. We are going to be on that side soon. We do not really want a career public service. We do not really want to give all those people in the ACT public service an opportunity to go from the bottom to the top. We do not want fearless and frank advice. We want to be able to appoint our mates." That is the truth, Mr Speaker. That is the reality.

Mr Moore: That is what happened with every other Labor government in Australia.

MR OSBORNE: Mr Moore interjects that that happened with every other Labor government in Australia.

Mr Speaker, this is a great opportunity to fix some of the problems. This is a great opportunity to put in place a regime that gives public servants in the ACT the opportunity to be promoted on merit, not to be promoted because they are going to give their boss the advice their boss wants.

I will tell you what I think the root cause of things like Bruce stadium were. I have been here for six years. I think the reality was that some public servants, those people who have had big contracts-they were not for insignificant amounts of money-were too afraid to say no. We have all seen people move-those people who did not fit the mould of what the minister at the time wanted. That is exactly what we are trying to fix here,

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