Page 1296 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2016
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR COE: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I thank Mr Smyth for his keen observance of the standing orders, and for pointing out standing order 118. Of course, the reason why standing order 118 is in the statutes is because, in effect, at any other time that such a statement would be made we would get advance notice and advance warning of such a statement, and we would usually get that in writing. Therefore we would have the opportunity to speak to it at the conclusion. In the absence of getting advance warning, and in the absence of such presentation of a paper or a statement by leave, I will take this opportunity.
The Canberra Liberals want to restore pride to TAMS. We believe that for too long this government have been treating TAMS poorly. They have not been backing staff and they have not been backing the agency to carry out essential work. There is no doubt that there are numerous areas of TAMS, including subunits, that are underresourced and do not have the backing that they should, and they do not have the backing they should from either the Chief Minister or indeed the minister.
This machinery of government change has been announced today in the paper and I imagine it is news to a lot of people in the TAMS agency. Perhaps some people listening to this debate today might have heard more about the change to their agency through listening to a webstream of the Assembly than through their own internal channels. It is potentially very disappointing if that is the case. We owe it to all public servants in Canberra to ensure that they are treated with respect and that is not what is happening at the moment.
We need to make sure that we empower people in TAMS to use their skills and the resources which they have built up in a meaningful way. But it seems to us on this side of the chamber that TAMS and other agencies are being stripped of resources time and time again simply to go to capital metro. As a result of this new transport Canberra and city services agency, I hope that the city services component and the corporate component of this agency do not become a poor cousin to capital metro.
If this is seen as a capital metro takeover of TAMS, I think that is extremely unfortunate and a huge amount of damage could be done between 1 July and 15 October, the time of the next election. A huge amount of damage could be done in that time, not just to the actual resources of TAMS but also to the culture and morale of the agency. We need to make sure that ACTION and all the other important areas of TAMS are genuinely backed. That is what a Canberra Liberals government will do. We will back the TAMS agency to deliver the corporate services they require.
Quite frankly, what we are seeing today, through the transport Canberra and city services directorate, is not what was advised by Dr Allan Hawke. It seems that the Hawke review into this government has been totally thrown out the window. It seems that all of those important machinery of government and governance arrangements which he suggested, which are well worth taking on board, have been disregarded by this government. And it is all because of two things: (1) the complete focus on capital metro; and (2) all the decisions being taken into the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate. That, as an agency, does not function as an agency should, and that agency is not consistent with what Dr Allan Hawke
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video