Page 4546 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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recent weeks to distribute over 180,000 bins to households and to complexes in the ACT to establish the collection systems as far as the new vehicles are concerned. There has been a complete change of the methodology for collection. There has been an extension of the hours of operation of the operators to ensure that all services are collected on the day of which householders have been notified.
As you would expect, and as is the experience in places that have introduced MGB systems - Queanbeyan, Brisbane, Wagga and a range of other areas throughout Australia - the level of speed, if you like, at which the operators work improves as they become more familiar with the system. It is a case of practice making perfect. We have already seen a diminution in the total hours worked to effect a single service collection, even in the three days of operation of the current system. I am confident, as experience has shown in those places that I have outlined, that the very long hours that are currently being worked will be reduced to basically the daylight hours of operation that the original proposition outlined.
Mrs Carnell: Are they being paid overtime?
MR LAMONT: My understanding is that the employees of the various organisations are being paid in accordance with award prescriptions for such purposes.
Mrs Carnell: Overtime?
MR LAMONT: I understand that they are being paid in accordance with award prescriptions.
Arts Funding - Trades and Labour Council Grant
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is to the Minister for the Arts and Heritage, Mr Wood. I refer to the media release issued by the Minister on 7 November, headed "Follett Government Continues Strong Support for ACT Arts Community". The release states:
The Follett Government is proud to provide one of the highest per capita rates of financial support for artists in Australia.
I ask the Minister: Does the ACT Trades and Labour Council qualify as part of the Territory's arts community? Does he agree that a $45,000 grant for a full-time community arts officer for the Trades and Labour Council to encourage something called community cultural development is part of the quid pro quo relationship between his Government and the Trades and Labour Council?
MR WOOD: Mr Humphries purports to be the shadow spokesman for the arts, but in this question he reveals that he does not have a very deep knowledge of the arts and of the long and historic tradition of a wide variety of working groups and their involvement in the arts.
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