Page 350 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
and feedback from others who had attended meetings and from my own personal attendance at many of the functions facilitated by the staff member concerned.
(d) The Director of Electorate Services works for all opposition MLAs as an additional link between the Assembly and the community. Due to the rigidity of Assembly procedures, this is facilitated by members “pledging” staff allocations to the leader’s office, who then employs staff to serve all of the opposition MLAs. This pooled staff arrangement has been used before in the Assembly, to my understanding. I have, in fact, been informed by Corporate Services that the stability and efficiency this arrangement has created has resulted in noticeably improved efficiencies and service.
The Director of Electorate Services has a unique role. He is specifically tasked to be out of the Assembly as much as possible. As a party, we determined early on that the disconnect between the Assembly and the community lies, in part, with the fact that we do not have electorate offices and members can tend to spend a lot of time in the Assembly building and not enough time in the community. The Director of Electorate Services role is specifically designed to connect and contact the community. As such, his role requires him to travel and interact with groups and people all over Canberra, to arrange and take meetings and to assist in the formulation of policy based on what he has learnt out in the community, not here in the Assembly.
This approach to community contact has, however, also been used in part by our political opponents to create a false impression. It is an important part of this role not to be in the building, a concept adopted to some extent by all parties in this Assembly. The result of doing that more extensively by one party than others has been to question the legitimacy of that work. I reject that conclusion. In fact, the enterprise agreement specifically recognises that work can, and often is, conducted off site. Our approach to do that more than the other parties does not make it fundamentally different to the actions all other parties take.
(e) and (f). E8.2 of the enterprise agreement does not apply in this circumstance. E8.2 applies to staff working at home and, more specifically, when setting up a home office. That is not the case here. It is common practice for MLAs and their staff to leave the building and attend community functions. This role, in this party, is tasked to do exactly the same thing, but on a much more consistent and concerted basis. E8.2 does not and is not intended to apply to these circumstances. The standard is the same for all other members and all other staff when they operate outside the Assembly.
(g) The Director of Electorate Services is also the president of the ACT branch of the Liberal Party, just as the president of the ACT Labor Party used to work in Katy Gallagher’s office and now works for Dr Bourke.
(h) The president of the Liberal Party is a voluntary, unpaid position. The office of the Liberal Party is at level 5, 221 London Circuit. The staff member concerned would have cause to be at that address and at other places fulfilling his voluntary role.
(i) All duties done in the role of party president are conducted in his own time. It is important to note that my Director of Electorate Services, when conducting Assembly
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video