Page 6044 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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Today the amendment I am proposing to the Public Sector Management Act is a marker of how seriously we will take the challenge and how vigorously I intend those employment strategies to be implemented once they are finalised. As I made clear to all chief executives at last week’s launch of the framework, I would expect these positions not just to be created but to be filled, be supported and to survive whatever organisational restructuring occurs over time.
I now turn to other aspects of the bill. It is a bill that must be viewed in the context of the ACT public service legislative employment framework. That framework is a hierarchy consisting of the Public Sector Management Act 1994, the subordinate public sector management standards and a number of industrial agreements. The Public Sector Management Act derives from the commonwealth Public Service Act 1922, now repealed.
It was enacted before the existence of collective agreements made under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and enterprise agreement made under the Fair Work Act 2009. The legislative employment framework is continually evolving to meet the needs of the public service and to respond to changes in relevant commonwealth legislation.
Many recent changes to the framework have occurred as a result of negotiations between the territory and its employees as a part of agreement making. Successive rounds of agreements in the public service have seen matters that were once covered exclusively in the Public Sector Management Act and standards being modified or overridden by agreements.
To deliver a simpler, more consistent and coherent legislative employment framework, the Public Sector Management Act and the standards are now being amended to better align with those agreements. The act, the standards and the agreement ought to form a coherent whole.
The Public Sector Management Act provides for the establishment and management of the service including the grounds on which a person can join, move within or leave the service and matters supporting these mechanisms, such as merit-based selection, for example.
Public sector management standards support the act by expanding on principles and operations with enabling mechanisms and administrative processes. And the purpose of agreements outlines the provision of entitlements agreed by the territory and its employees—things such as salaries, leave entitlements and allowances.
This bill deals with the relocation of provisions across the framework—updating or incorporating matters from agreements or the standards, and omitting matters from the act which are now covered in the public sector management standards or agreements.
The relocation of provisions across the employment framework requires deft timing to ensure that all matters remain in force as they are moved. As a consequence of occupational-specific arrangements, enterprise agreements are coming into effect in a staggered manner.
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