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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1452 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

time. It is those people who have asked whether they could have the flexibility. Instead of cashing out at the end of their term, maybe when a member loses an election or alternatively they leave their employment, they want to be able to cash out at other times during their employment as well.

To address Mr Berry's argument, that somehow this would mean that staff would be forced not to take holidays, they do not have to take holidays now, Mr Speaker.

Mr Berry: No, forced to cash it out.

MS CARNELL: This is true. A member who is going to be difficult or unreasonable could do that right now and those holidays would accumulate until that staff member left. Then they would have one lump sum at the end. Any view that this changes the dynamics of an employer/employee relationship is simply not true. All it does is allow an employee, a staff member, to take that payout when they choose to, using the flexibility in this determination. So, instead of taking it as a lump sum at the end, they are able to take it at various times when they may need the money.

One of the reasons staff members have suggested to me why this would be very useful to them is that if they could cash out, say, four weeks holiday and take four weeks off, they potentially could afford, maybe, to go overseas or whatever, to do something that they choose to do. Mr Speaker, again, that is just providing flexibility for a staff member.

I come back to the important point here. There is nothing in the current legislation to require staff to take holidays. There never has been in this Assembly. This is not about making sure people go home and spend time with their family, something that Mr Osborne spoke to me about before. There is no requirement now for that.

Mr Osborne: There will be soon.

MS CARNELL: Well, you could change the legislation; that is fine, but there is no requirement for that now. So this determination does not achieve that end. All it achieves, again, is flexibility for staff members, in agreement with their employer, to be able to take a payout for holidays owing when they choose to and when it falls inside the budget. It is that simple. Why did it happen? Why did this come forward? Because staff members asked for it.

Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour this day.

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