Page 6045 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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Therefore, the bill has a split commencement date with each component commencing on a date determined by the minister. This provides flexibility to ensure that no entitlements or arrangements will lapse during the transition.
Although considerable progress was made towards harmonising the legislative employment framework through the recent round of agreement negotiations in this bill, some elements of the framework still require reform. Additionally, there are other parts of the Public Sector Management Act that are not directly affected by the operation of agreements. These have not been reviewed.
Other amendments contained in the bill broadly fall into two categories: those amendments which specifically address matters where overlap and inconsistencies exist across the employment framework and those amendments which support the ongoing evolution of the ACT public service by removing anachronistic ties to commonwealth provisions and practices, noting that the commonwealth itself has repealed these since the commencement of ACT self-government.
The bill covers a range of employment condition amendments, including long service leave, maternity leave, probation, redeployment, acting arrangements, promotion, transfers and portability entitlements. The bill removes all provisions relating to long service leave and maternity leave from the act. Due to the complexity, the movement of long service leave provisions from the act to agreements will be a staged process.
Maternity leave entitlements will move directly to enterprise agreements and the latest agreements negotiated by the government provide a generous 18 weeks of leave for mothers or primary care givers. However, to ensure that employees such as teachers, nurses, doctors and fire fighters are covered by occupational-specific agreements, maternity leave will not be omitted from the act until all occupational-specific agreements have incorporated the consolidated maternity leave provisions.
The bill omits provisions relating to the management of inefficiency, discipline and reviews and grievances, principally to remove current inconsistencies across the employment framework and reduce ambiguity about the processes. Currently the ACT public service agreements cover these areas.
Further, due to the repeal of the Commonwealth Merit Protection (Australian Government Employees) Act 1984, significant elements of the current discipline and review provisions within the act have been rendered inoperable.
In the unlikely event that agreements have ceased to operate in the public service, the bill provides a safety net. Additionally, all reviewable and appellable decisions within the Public Sector Management Act that are subject to the review and appeal processes prescribed in agreements are listed in a schedule to the act.
Matters that will continue to be located in both the act and agreements are also updated so that various provisions about particular matters are better aligned across the employment framework. This includes clarifying the powers for chief executives to extend probation and to terminate probation in cases where an officer fails to undertake a requisite medical assessment. Probation provisions are also amended to
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