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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1208 ..
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, Mr Speaker, I will retract my last statement and I will rephrase it in a way that I think will acknowledge the concern that we have raised. I think that a report, in these circumstances, should acknowledge constraints on the capacity of individuals within a system to effect change in that system. In particular, a report of this kind should acknowledge that individuals who are program managers must be able to conduct their work in a way that acknowledges the budget constraints on them.
People who are required to work in these settings do so within budgets. No public servant has the luxury of saying, "I prefer to live within a different and bigger budget, and I therefore choose to take a different approach." I believe that it is important, in assessing the value of the recommendations made, that we consider the question of the constraints that operate in these circumstances on public servants. (Extension of time granted.)
Let me say no more about the process used by the inquiry, but instead comment on the way in which the government has chosen to respond to the inquiry, in particular, the way in which it has decided to treat the public servants concerned. As members know, before the report was tabled in this place, or publicly accessible, a very strong view was expressed by the government.
In fact, the government actually announced its intention not to remove from office any public servant who was criticised in the report. It said it would keep those people in place, subject to other processes operating in respect of those people, particularly Mr Szwarcbord who, the Minister for Health argued, was a person employed by the health board, not directly by the government or the department of health.
The government took the view that the public servants concerned in this case should not face the penalty that was prescribed by the Gallop report. As I have said already in this place, it was the view of the Liberal opposition that those public servants also should not be required to face the penalty or remedy recommended by the Gallop report. However, I believe that it is not enough to merely note that fact. We should also note the enormous inconsistency of the approach taken by the government to the treatment of public servants in similar circumstances.
Let us not forget that this is not the first time public servants have been criticised in this place, including in reports of a magnitude similar to the one we have before us today. Public servants have been criticised on a number of occasions: the hospital implosion inquiry and the Bruce Stadium report are two that spring to mind. I want to remind members of what the Labor opposition, as it then was, had to say about public servants in these circumstances.
Mr Stanhope, as Opposition Leader, repeatedly attacked the handling of the release of documents and other processes associated with Bruce Stadium. In particular, he made comments that were highly critical of public servants. In the Canberra Times, for example, on 6 October 2000, the following report appeared:
Labor leader Jon Stanhope said his long battle to obtain Bruce Stadium documents had left him wondering if the ACT Public Service deserved his respect. Appearing before an Assembly committee, he said he was not referring to the entire Public Service but did not resile from his criticisms. "At the bottom line, it's a sign of gross incompetence," he said.
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