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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (22 April) . . Page.. 1170 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

allow it to operate with sometimes less than the optimum number of people. That is part of the nature of an organisation that large. Any organisation which did not have that capacity would have to be questioned in terms of its effective operation.

Let us suppose for one instant that it was somehow more efficient as a result of not filling those positions. Is Mr Hargreaves saying that therefore they produce an efficiency which could be used to pay for their pay rises?

Mr Hargreaves: Yes.

MR HUMPHRIES: If you are saying that by reducing the number of positions we have in the brigade - - -

Mr Hargreaves: You have reduced them already.

Mr Stanhope: You have just been through that.

MR HUMPHRIES: If I could finish my answer, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Go on.

MR HUMPHRIES: If Mr Hargreaves is saying that if we simply reduce the number of positions we have in the Fire Brigade and the saving we make by reducing the number of positions pays for a pay rise, I am very interested in talking to the brigade about that very matter, Mr Speaker. I am very interested indeed. That is what I would call efficiency, but I very much doubt whether the union is interested in abolishing positions in order to produce a pay rise. I am very doubtful indeed. I suspect, Mr Speaker, that discussions will reveal that.

The union, I know, has claimed that the Government has walked away from the table, but my understanding of the situation is that the view has been taken by the union that unless and until the Government puts on the table budget-funded pay rises of some sort it is not going to continue to talk. I am happy to have talks at any stage between the union and the Government, but it has to be on the basis that we invite discussions on those subjects with every other worker in the ACT Government, which is that they have to find productivity savings to pay for the pay rises they seek.

MR HARGREAVES: I have a supplementary question. In that case, Minister, will you give an undertaking that the funds which were originally allocated to those positions within the Fire Brigade that were unfilled for the past 12 months can and will be offered as a pay increase in this current round of negotiations, as per what you have just said?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I am not going to intervene in a negotiation between the brigade and the department on those issues. If the brigade wishes to offer it and the UFU wishes to accept an offer of that kind, I am perfectly willing to accept that, provided there is no compromise to the quality of services provided to the people of Canberra. I am very willing to entertain that idea. Mr Speaker, I want, though, the parties to sit around that table and talk about it. If they believe that that is a worthwhile saving then that is fine. I am not in a position to say whether it is a worthwhile saving or

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