Page 8 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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approached things over many years, including in Ms Gallagher’s office, where the president of the Labor Party has worked. In fact, until recently Labor Party candidates have been working for Labor members in this place. Obviously the government will have to explain those things.
We are very happy to comply. We are happy to answer questions. The motion is calling for my office to answer a number of questions. We will answer those questions. We do not accept the premise of much of the motion, but we are happy to answer questions. But it is important that all members answer questions in relation to the management of their offices—the management of personnel, the management of staff. If we are going to be fair dinkum about this, I am sure that those opposite will not shy away from a similar audit being conducted on their offices and their actions.
The other part of Mr Hargreaves’s argument seems to be that you cannot do any work for a member outside the office. Every time a member goes out to a shopping centre and is assisted by a staff member, apparently, according to Mr Hargreaves, they should be clocking off. Every time they go to an event outside the Assembly, they are somehow not working. What a ridiculous claim.
That is central to his claim. That was what he spent most of his time talking about in his motion. Is that what the Labor Party’s position is now—that staff are working only when they are in the Assembly? What a ridiculous proposition.
I would add that certainly my staff—and I am sure many staff across the Assembly—work many hours of unpaid overtime. We wish that it were not so. We wish they were able to be paid for every hour that they do. When they are working in budget week, working well beyond midnight—they claimed every hour, and I encouraged them to do so. But there are times when they get calls early in the morning, when they are working. They do not write every hour down. And many of them max out their TOIL and simply do not get paid for every hour that they do. We acknowledge the hard work that they do.
In relation to this issue, we are happy to answer questions. But it is reasonable to ask that, if we are going to apply one standard to the opposition, the same kinds of questions are asked across the board. I think it is therefore reasonable to expand this, and the Canberra Liberals will be seeking to do that.
I just conclude by saying this. We will be very happy to answer those questions. We hope that any auditing will be done in a fair, impartial, transparent way that does not just target one side of politics in an election year.
Let us be clear about why the government are seeking to stir this up. They are seeking to stir this up because, in an election year, they do not want to talk about their record. They do not want to talk about what they have been doing. We see daily failures of administration by this government. We saw them just this weekend: they are failing to pay bills, for five years in some circumstances. The administrative failings by the government and the millions of dollars wasted as a result are an issue of concern, something we will continue to pursue.
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