Page 3917 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
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Mr Speaker, the job that either whip actually discharges is borne in convention, or such was the case until, I believe I am correct, the 2001 to 2004 life of the Assembly when a submission was put to the remuneration tribunal which in a sense, because of the remuneration tribunal’s agreement to the payment of an allowance, actually started the codification of exactly what those duties were.
For the record, I will list some of them: the arrangement of pairs; negotiation with all three sectors of the Assembly on private members’ business; the coordination of speaking lists for private members’ business; advice to colleagues on the conduct of debates and the interpretation of standing orders; disciplinary processes such as privileges committees, censure motions and no-conference motions; and, significantly, membership of the Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure. That is where we had, in my view, the potential for a really bad precedent to be set.
In my view, the remuneration tribunal had as a major plank of the reason for the allocation of an allowance a whip’s membership of the administration and procedure committee. A whip has a couple of roles there. The minor role is negotiation of the order of business for private members’ business. The major role is the provision of assistance to the Speaker, in committee, on managing the parliamentary precinct. That is something which often members do not see happening, but it is actually a major role. In the management of that precinct, for example, the committee provides advice to the Speaker on the elements to be put forward in budgets, security matters concerning the precinct and a whole range of other issues.
That is an administrative role, and it was recognised by the remuneration tribunal as one of the major planks for granting an allowance and it was why this side of the house supported Mr Stefaniak’s submission—I do not know whether it was on his own behalf or on behalf of the Liberal Party—to the remuneration tribunal to get the duties recognised. We were quite happy with that and we now have that recognition.
I believe that this motion should never have been put forward. According to the motion, the role of providing advice to the Speaker on the management of the precinct is to go to the manager of opposition business. It should be stated that there is no recognition of the role of the manager of opposition business. It is not recognised in this place and it is not recognised by the remuneration tribunal. So any extra workload that that member may carry is not actually recognised and rewarded by an additional allowance in his or her pay packet. Indeed, such is also the case on this side of the house. The manager of government business receives no remuneration in addition to compensate for that extra workload.
Of concern to me here is this disregard for the remuneration tribunal’s approach to what is essentially a job distribution in this place. Are we talking about incompetence or conspiracy? In this case, I will go with incompetence. It is probably not the first time we have seen it and it probably will not be the last time. But it is also an insult, in my view, to the manager of opposition business to say to him, “We want to get you to carry the load and we are going to pay someone else for carrying it.”
I have to say that I have a problem with sustaining a view to the remuneration tribunal that we should pay an allowance of $10,000 to somebody who merely arranges pairs in
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