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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2870 ..

Mr Quinlan: I thought you were talking about an advisory service. Are you shifting ground?

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please! Let us not have interjections.

MR HUMPHRIES: Unless I am sorely mistaken, I do not think you did. Show me the Hansard where you said it. I do not recall you saying that there was going to be a new scheme set up. You might have been thinking about it, yet not mentioned it to the Estimates Committee. We had a few instances where things were being talked about that were not divulged to the committee, although they were announced very soon afterwards. The fact is that we did ask the question and we did put the issue on the table. Even if you were thinking about it beforehand, it might be nice to acknowledge that, yes, the committee has made a reasonable suggestion and we will-partly, at least-take up its idea, rather than say, "We do not agree with you but, by the way, we are doing the same thing anyway, in the background."

Mr Deputy Speaker, there are a couple of other points. There was some debate in the Estimates Committee about money put aside for pay rises for public servants. The Treasurer had earlier been very vocal in suggesting that insufficient money had been put aside. However, when it came to an examination before the committee, the Treasurer was reluctant to reveal how much was put aside, and how much had previously been put aside, thus allowing a comparison to be made on the very point he had raised in the public arena.

I repeat, in this place, the assertion I have espoused in the public arena. There was a large amount of money put aside to meet public service pay rises. I maintain that it is, or was, sufficient to meet reasonable pay rises which might be anticipated in the public service. If the Treasurer says I am wrong, he can show me how I am wrong, and not say to me, "You may take my word for it that the money is not there." To return to an earlier theme in this debate, that is not about open and transparent government.

I will not mention in detail the comments in the report on the treatment of superannuation. I simply say to the government that it is pretty clearly the view of the Estimates Committee that we should retain the model endorsed by the Auditor-General. I think the government agrees with that, but I am not sure.

Finally, I congratulate the Treasurer on being able to effectively avoid the across-the-board cuts which affected other areas of government. We saw that the amount taken out of the Treasury budget to account for the half percent across-the-board public service cut-which it worked out to be at the end of the day-was matched, almost exactly, by the additional amount put aside to provide for additional quality economic advice.

I do not think Treasury should be cut. I say that not just because I am a former Treasurer, but because the area is already hard pressed. The quality of advice is very dependent upon employing high-quality people who are paid at a level which reflects what they would be receiving in other public services, or in the private sector. In my view, it is wise not to cut that area. Effectively, I think that, with a little bit of peas and thimbles work, the Treasurer has been able to achieve that.

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