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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2253 ..
MR SMYTH
(continuing):Assembly to pass his bill to authorise funding for the wage increase, but has not justified the request. His presentation speech does not give one reason why the payment of $19.5 million is necessary.
Mr Corbell
: There were real wage decreases for the last seven years under the Liberal government. That is the reason.MR SMYTH
: Mr Corbell interjects. Mr Corbell should consult the Treasurer's speech, because none of that is outlined in the speech. The Treasurer should at least explain to the Assembly the reason for his request to spend the $19.5 million. I invite him to do so at the conclusion of this debate.The Treasurer should also be criticised for not seeking productivity improvements within the public service to fund, at least in part, the wage increases. The result is that the public service will benefit at the expense of the rest of the community-in this case, individuals, ratepayers and businesses-who will pay for it either directly through higher taxes and charges, or in services forgone.
Since the wage increase is not offset by any compensating improvements in productivity or delivery of services, and there are additional transaction costs, such as raising taxes and processing payments, the net effect is that the community as a whole is worse off.
To concede that the government did not even try to negotiate productivity improvements, the Treasurer said in his presentation speech that this is the first time in many years clerical wage increases have been supplemented by additional budget funding. I think he should be embarrassed to even think that, let alone say it publicly.
Even if he were to argue, which he has not done so far, that the pay increase is necessary to be competitive with other employment opportunities, that should not rule out more effective ways of delivering those services, or working smarter rather than harder-but the Treasurer has not even tried. Why? Perhaps it is his incapacity to manage public funds responsibly-or is it because of the opposition's third major concern, which is the extent to which this government has been captured by the union movement?
We all know that the Labor Party is the child of the union movement and that, at the end of the day, individual Labor MLAs stand or fall at the behest of the factions of faceless union powerbrokers. I suspect that the reason no productivity gains were sought by the Treasurer, in return for handing over $19.5 million in wage increases, is simply that his union masters would not allow him to do so.
Despite the Treasurer's silly and false remarks that the opposition is saying no to anything the government does, and that we always take the most negative approach, we intend to allow the passage of this bill. However, we ask the Treasurer to explain why he just handed the money over and did not try to achieve some productivity gains on behalf of the people of Canberra.
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