Page 1236 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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requested such a meeting or such consultations. I do not think there is anything very unusual in the way I use the term "consultation". I use it to mean a real exchange of views, and I believe that that is what is occurring in relation to the ACT budget.
Members' Staff
MR STEVENSON: My question is to the Chief Minister and it concerns the cost of supplying staff to the ALP, a question asked on 31 May in this house. Two months later, on 1 August, the Minister in her capacity as Treasurer replied, indicating that the budget for the Executive, the four Labor Ministers, was $548,769 and that allows 14 staff members on an independent list. The phone book listing Ministers' staff, which is effective from the same date as the Minister's reply on 1 August, lists 21 staff members for the four Labor Ministers, a difference of seven, or 50 per cent. If you divide half a million by two you get a quarter of a million dollars difference in staffing.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stevenson, please ask your question.
MR STEVENSON: Would the Chief Minister please explain the difference between the 14 staff listed in her reply and the 21 staff listed on the same date in the phone book?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I do not have detailed information before me but I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the ALP is provided with no staff whatsoever at the ACT's expense. In fact, staffing is provided to the Government and to the Executive; it is not provided to a party. I think Mr Stevenson is quite wrong about that. Staffing indeed has been provided to all members of the Assembly, and to members of this Assembly in their various capacities.
I do not think it is any secret, Mr Speaker, that the Executive, the Ministers, have a larger staffing allocation than do other members of this Assembly. Certainly I do not back away from that at all. But, of course, there has been a basic staffing allocation made to members of this Assembly, which Mr Stevenson currently enjoys, as do other members of this Assembly. He is smiling and laughing. We can tell he is enjoying it.
Mr Speaker, the telephone list that Mr Stevenson refers to includes in the listing under staff for the Executive some staff who are made available from within our own departments. They are made available either in their role as liaison officers or in their role as administrative assistants.
Mr Kaine: Can we have some?
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