Page 1354 - Week 07 - Thursday, 24 August 1989
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(2) the Abolish Self Government Coalition should be able to use its staff budget allocation to hire a consultancy until such matters are clarified in the Legislative Assembly (Members' Staff) Bill 1989.
It is obvious that the success of a member in this Assembly largely, or to a great degree, depends on the support staff he or she has. I, first of all, make note of the staff and budgetary allocation of all parties in this Assembly. The five Labor Party members, with some 24 staff, have a budget allocation of at least $580,000; the four Liberal members, with nine staff, have an allocation of at least $255,000; the four Residents Rally members, with six staff, have an allocation of at least $184,000; the three members of the No Self Government Party, with five staff, have an allocation of $181,000; and the Abolish Self Government Coalition, with one member, has an allocation of $31,693.
Now, there are obvious reasons for these differences, and they are that members of some parties hold other positions in this Assembly. Without commenting on the validity or otherwise of those positions, I wish to comment on the events leading up to my staff services effectively being terminated by the Chief Minister. The minimum allocation in this Assembly to another party in my circumstances is 1.5. The only party that is relevant here is the Residents Rally. They have six staff members among four members of the Assembly and a total, as I mentioned, of $184,936. I ask for a one-quarter allocation of this amount.
Prior to being able to have this matter handled, and it still has not been handled, I was not able to hire staff because I did not have the final allocation. It would have placed anybody I hired in a rather uncomfortable position to later on be told they were going to be on a lower salary or they were going to be expected to do more work in a capability that they may have not been hired for. I did not want to place anyone in that position. So what I decided to do was, until the Coalition received a fair go in this matter, to hire a consultancy.
I effectively gained the services of three people, one a volunteer, for the cost of one staff officer to the ACT taxpayers. In addition to that, as it was a consultancy, I saved money for the taxpayers because they were not required to pay insurances, holiday pay, sick leave, leave loadings, superannuation, et cetera, not within the consultancy. I strongly make the point that it was not my intention to hire a consultancy initially. It was only done as a stopgap measure, until I received what other comparable members in this house have.
One would think that, when saving taxpayers money, one would deserve commendation, not condemnation. So there are two factors here. Firstly, there is the allocation of a staff budget; that is, I am asking for 1.5 as an amount.
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