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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 895 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I think it is important to be able to say that Chief Ministers have made those sorts of decisions in that way, sometimes not with great alacrity. I recall a request to the previous Chief Minister from the Liberal Party for additional resourcing for, I think, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition at the time, which took nearly two years for her to respond to.

Mr Berry: The manager of Opposition business, actually.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is right, the manager of Opposition business. Yes, that was the position, as Mr Berry reminds me, and it took nearly two years for her to respond to that. On occasions like that we felt very strongly about coming down to this place and forcing an issue of the kind which is now being forced by the present Opposition. We resisted that temptation; but, obviously, the present Opposition cannot do likewise. Mr Speaker, I oppose the legislation, but I acknowledge that there are some elements of it which, I think, we on this side of the chamber will benefit from in the future.

MS TUCKER (3.50): I would like to make a few comments on this Bill. We will be supporting it. I must say that, as a manager, the Chief Minister, I think, has failed in the processes that have occurred. I do not feel that we have had our input listened to. I am appalled at the way staff of all members of this place have had to wait. I was appalled to find a response to our complaints put under my door on 23 December. I am concerned that my staff already have insecure employment in working for Ms Horodny and me in this place. I can see no good management in changing that situation six months before the next election. I think this process has been handled badly. I can see the downside of giving it to the whole parliament to discuss, but I am afraid that this process has been so appallingly handled by the Chief Minister that I am willing to take on the troubles that might come as a consequence of this legislation. I am absolutely shocked at the whole approach to this, in terms of industrial relations and basic decency.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (3.52), in reply: Mr Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. I do think this is an important Bill. I have to say, Mr Speaker, that in bringing in this legislation I was not unconscious of the political concerns that Mr Humphries has raised or the complexities that Mrs Carnell has raised about these issues ending up on the floor of the chamber. The Labor Opposition, and perhaps others in the parliament, found ourselves in the situation of having no real choice because of the way Mrs Carnell has handled this matter.

I was startled and surprised to hear Mrs Carnell, suddenly today, professing concern about the insecurity that might be created for members' staff from the possibility of an arbitrary cut to their members' salary allocations, or arbitrary changes to members' conditions of employment, when it is exactly those actions that Mrs Carnell has been proposing and has been seeking to foist on members in this place without any consideration for the circumstances, the anxieties and the pressures that have been put on those members. It seems to me that Mrs Carnell's protestations of concern about that uncertainty ring rather hollow against her record in this matter. If her record had been better, perhaps we would not be in this situation now.

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