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STATE SERVICE BILL 2000 (No. 91)

Second Reading

Mr JIM BACON (Denison - Premier - 2R) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

Mr Deputy Speaker, this bill is the culmination of an extensive consultative process with agencies, unions and other stakeholders in the Tasmanian community. The bill offers much greater flexibility in its provisions than the current Tasmanian State Service Act 1984. It has been recognised for a number of years that the current act is a very prescriptive piece of legislation that does not meet the requirements of the public sector nor the community it serves in the twenty-first century.

The State Service Bill 2000 will provide for a State Service that is professional, equitable, flexible, forward-looking and, most importantly, accountable, while providing the best possible services to the Government and the community.

A review of the current act was commenced in 1997 under the former Government and it has been continued and finalised under my Government. In March of this year a paper titled 'A Proposed Framework for Reform' was released publicly with an invitation for interested parties in the community to provide comment. After consideration of responses to the framework paper, initial draft legislation was prepared. That legislation has since been the subject of wide and ongoing consultation.

Since May this year three formal consultation drafts have been circulated to agencies and the Tasmanian Trades and Labor Council. In keeping with my Government's commitment to consultation, a copy of the bill was posted on the Department of Premier and Cabinet's Internet site, together with a list of frequently asked questions about the bill. Through that Internet site, employees and other interested parties have also had the opportunity to have input to the consultation process and to ask questions about the bill.

The bill, which will be supplemented and supported by regulations, ministerial directions, commissioner's directions, commissioner's advices and agency-based standing orders, includes a number of new and improved features.

Mr Deputy Speaker, one of the great strengths of this bill is that it ensures that all employment decisions in the State Service are based on merit.

The bill also introduces a set of State Service principles that provide overarching statements concerning the values of the State Service, the nature of its operations and what is expected of those who work within it. Many of these principles have been implicit in expectations of managers and staff in the past but now, for the first time, they are being specified in legislation in a way that clearly indicates to members of the community what they can expect from their State Service. Accountability, leadership, ethical behaviour, merit, workplace diversity, fairness and flexibility have all been included in the principles. The State Service Commissioner, heads of agency, holders of prescribed offices, senior executives and employees are all required to uphold them.
The bill includes a revised definition of merit, specifically linked to the State Service principles, which provides the increased flexibility needed to address past concerns about merit, workplace diversity, succession planning and employment-related decision making.

Mr Deputy Speaker, another significant innovation in the bill is a code of conduct. The code of conduct complements the State Service principles and clearly sets out the standards of behaviour that are expected from heads of agency, holders of prescribed offices, senior executives and employees. The code of conduct is a vast improvement on the provisions in the current act where issues of conduct are expressed negatively in terms of discipline and offences. The bill also enables agencies to develop specific conduct provisions to supplement the code. By way of example, this might include the Department of Education developing a set of standards of behaviour for teachers in their relationship with students.

The bill requires the establishment of procedures for the investigation and determination of alleged breaches of the code of conduct. These will ensure procedural fairness in the determination of any alleged breach. If, after proper investigation, it is determined that a breach of the code has occurred, the minister may impose a sanction, which, depending on the nature of the breach, can range from counselling to termination of employment. An employee can appeal any sanction imposed but, in the case of termination, the relevant industrial tribunal would deal with the appeal. As a safeguard, 'whistleblower' protection is now provided for a person who notifies a breach of the code of conduct to the State Service Commissioner or a head of agency.

The bill provides for a State Service Commissioner to be appointed by the Governor. The commissioner is an independent statutory officer responsible for a range of functions including upholding, promoting, and ensuring adherence to the State Service principles. In addition, the commissioner picks up a number of functions undertaken by the Commissioner for Public Employment, the Commissioner for Review and the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet under the current act.

The commissioner has the power to issue directions relating to any of the commissioner's functions. The commissioner's directions are binding and are similar to employment instructions under the current act. Commissioner's directions are presently being developed in conjunction with agencies and in consultation with unions. This will ensure that the directions are not only legally sound but also workable in a practical sense.

In terms of employment, Mr Deputy Speaker, the minister administering the State Service Act 2000 will appoint all employees, except officers, on behalf of the Crown. Officers are defined as heads of agency, holders of prescribed offices and senior executives and will be appointed by the Premier on behalf of the Crown. These officers will be award-free and employed on contract in the same way as they are now. However a range of general employment provisions in the act, including the State Service principles and the code of conduct, will also apply to them.

The minister administering the act may also issue directions on matters relating to the administration of the State Service. These directions, which will be binding, are similar to administrative instructions under the 1984 act.

Employment under the new act will be on a permanent or fixed-term basis, but I want to stress that permanent employment will be the usual form of employment. Fixed-term employment will be limited to a specified term or for the duration of a specified task.

The terms and conditions of employment currently contained in the Tasmanian State Service Regulations 1985 remain the same, however they will now be incorporated in a number of different and more appropriate areas. These will include:

the State Service Regulations 2000;

a Tasmanian State Service interim agreement as a precursor to inclusion in the relevant industrial awards and agreements;

ministerial directions;

commissioner's directions -

and I stress again that none of the current employment terms and conditions will be reduced.

As I have indicated, appointment and promotion in the State Service will be based on merit and, for the first time, Mr Deputy Speaker, there will be no maximum age limit for employment in the State Service. This recognises that many employees who have met the maximum age limit under the 1984 act still have much to offer the State Service. Their potential to continue to make a valuable contribution to the State through their knowledge and experience is acknowledged by the bill before us today.

The duration and conditions of probation for employees will be determined by the commissioner and, unlike current arrangements, probation will also be available for fixed-term appointments.

The bill retains current provisions enabling the minister to convert an employee from fixed-term to permanent status. In addition, reversion rights are provided for permanent employees who accept an appointment on a fixed-term basis or as an officer. The bill also provides a range of safeguards for State Service employees, including appeal rights, which are now referred to as 'reviews'.

The bill requires heads of agency to develop and implement an internal grievance resolution system for their agency to ensure employees are given every opportunity to have grievances resolved at an early stage. The State Service Commissioner will determine matters of a serious nature and where internal agency grievance processes have been unable to resolve the issue, the commissioner's determination of an application for review of a decision or action is binding and final.

As I have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, the appeal rights contained in the 1984 act have been maintained. There are two review rights in the bill: one concerns merit selection of permanent employees, and the other concerns any general grievance relating to an employee's employment in the State Service. For the first time, all review rights will be available to permanent and fixed-term employees.

As is the case with the current act, the commissioner may approve the direct selection of an employee. However employees will now be able to seek a review of the intention to direct-select another employee before the direct selection takes place. If such a review is successful, the position must then be advertised. This is yet another example, Mr Deputy Speaker, of the bill providing greater protection of employees' rights and of the merit principle in public employment.

Industrial grievances, including those relating to termination of employment, will be heard by the relevant industrial tribunal.

As I indicated before, Mr Deputy Speaker, the minister is responsible for the imposition of sanctions in relation to breaches of the code of conduct. The minister is also responsible for taking action in relation to an employee who is unable to effectively and efficiently perform the duties assigned to that employee. Before the minister takes any action against a permanent employee, the matter must be investigated and determined by the commissioner. Again, the procedures for the determination of such a matter will ensure procedural fairness.

The ability to suspend an employee from duty while under investigation for an alleged breach of the code of conduct, or while a determination is being made in regards to an employee's ability to effectively and efficiently perform their duties, if it is in the public interest to do so, has been retained from the 1984 act.

Heads of agency retain similar functions and powers to those contained in the current act with two notable additions. Heads will now be required:

to develop and implement a workplace diversity program to assist in giving effect to the State Service principles; and

to develop and implement an internal grievance resolution system in the agency.

The bill contains provisions allowing secondment, redeployment and voluntary transfer of employees to continue. The bill also allows for a far more flexible approach to the creation and abolition of positions.

Mr Deputy Speaker, while most of the minister's powers can be delegated, such powers will be subject to conditions and safeguards and any person acting under delegation will be accountable for such an action.

Provision is also made in the bill for administrative reorganisations whereby the Governor can transfer employees from statutory authorities to the State Service. At present this requires separate legislation on each occasion.

The approach taken to the make-up of the new State Service has been to exclude most government business enterprises but include statutory authorities and agencies.

There are some aspects of this general position that I would like to specifically refer to:

The Motor Accidents Insurance Board is a government business enterprise which is currently part of the State Service. However there is little connection between the MAIB and other State Service agencies and MAIB employees are employed under Federal awards. The MAIB will not be subject to the new act and its employment powers will derive instead from the Government Business Enterprises Act 1995.

Tasmanian Development and Resources is a statutory authority with its own employment powers under the Tasmanian Development Act 1983. The people it employs work as part of the Department of State Development. The TDA act will be amended to remove the employment powers so that the relevant employees come in under the State Service Act 2000. This will in no way affect the statutory independence of the TDR board or the functions it performs.

Tourism Tasmania is in a similar position and its staff will also come in under the State Service Act 2000 as Department of State Development employees. As with the TDR board, the Tourism board will be maintained as an independent authority continuing to exercise its current functions and powers.

The Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority is a government business enterprise and not subject to the Tasmanian State Service Act. The legislation we have before us will bring the authority into the State Service with its chief executive officer as the head of agency. It will, however, continue to be a government business enterprise with its own independent board.

The Retirement Benefits Fund Board is a statutory authority under the Tasmanian State Service Act. However it is exempted from most of its provisions to accommodate its trustee responsibilities. The RBF Board currently has a mix of Tasmanian State Service Act and non-Tasmanian State Service Act employees. This arrangement will not change at this stage; however it will be subject to review over the next year.

The Egg Marketing Board, Rivers and Water Supply Commission, Tasmanian Dairy Industry Authority, and Tasmanian Grain Elevators Board are government business enterprises each employing small numbers of employees subject to the Tasmanian State Service Act. In view of the small size of these organisations, there will be no change to their employment arrangements.

The Public Trustee is a government business enterprise but currently subject to the Tasmanian State Service Act. The trustee will continue to be covered by the State Service Act 2000 for the time being with this to be reviewed later in the year.

The State Emergency Service is part of the State Service; however the director has the power to employ casual employees, subject to the approval of the minister administering the Tasmanian State Service Act. There is no reason for these employees to be engaged outside the State Service Act 2000 and the SES act is being amended accordingly.

TAFE Tasmania is covered by the Tasmanian State Service Act but also has the power to employ people outside the provisions of that act. It is considered that it is more appropriate that all TAFE employees be subject to the State Service Act 2000 and the TAFE act is being amended accordingly. TAFE is also to be listed as a State authority subject to the act in Part 2 of Schedule 1 and the chief executive officer will be cited as the head of agency.

In conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker, the State Service Bill 2000 provides Tasmania's State Service with professional, equitable, flexible and forward-looking employment legislation which makes the State Service accountable to both the Government and the Tasmanian community.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend the bill to the House.

Mr GROOM (Denison) - The Opposition certainly supports most of the contents of this bill. We will be making some comments as we proceed through the second reading stage of the debate and also in the Committee stage about certain elements of the bill that we either have concerns about or we wish to make some comment on. But it is obviously an important piece of legislation because it does rewrite the 1984 State Service Act which of course is the basis for employment in the State government sector of the State of Tasmania and obviously it is of critical importance that that legislation be appropriately drawn so that it does protect the public interest but also, in all fairness, the interests of those who work in the public sector.

We did appreciate the briefings provided by the Premier through Mr Vines which gave us a good understanding of the bill and also some further material was sent to us following that briefing. We also know that there has been a long period of consultation before the bill was finally produced and, as the Premier mentioned, it goes back to 1997 when the honourable Ron Cornish, former minister in the State Government, initiated the process of considering a major rewrite of the State Service Act 1984 and, indeed, most of the content was pretty well agreed upon before the Liberal Government ceased to be in office in 1998. But when the Labor Government came to office it determined that there should be further consideration of the details of the bill and I know there have been some further changes put in place since the present Government has been in office and obviously we now see the end product of that whole process.

There has been consultation with the agencies, the unions concerned; TCCI has also been contacted and it has been discussed with that body. One of the issues that does concern me to some extent is, perhaps, the interest that the public may or may not have taken in the legislation in the drafting stages because it is essentially a public service bill that is meant to provide the best possible service to the public of Tasmania through the State Service. I would like to comment a little bit more later on about this question of whether it does address the needs of the community in its current form.

I must express some concern about the minimal amount of time provided for the Parliament to consider the details of the bill. I know that it is in accordance with Standing Orders but the bill was only introduced last Wednesday and here we are, Tuesday of the next week, only two sitting days later - clear days later - at least from Thursday, now we are into Tuesday before we have to debate the bill. It is not just this bill but of course there are cognate bills as well, as was mentioned earlier in comments. We have these other two rather large pieces of legislation which are associated with this principal bill and, frankly, it is very hard for members to get their minds around all of the detail contained in the bill at such short notice.

I know that the Premier has complied with Standing Orders in bringing the bill on for debate at this point in time but, nevertheless, the time is minimal under the standing orders that have been provided. I really feel this is an important point for the consideration of the House, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that although the standing orders say there should be at least two days - I think it is two clear days - and this is not sitting days, this is any day between the time a bill is introduced and the time it is debated, I would hope that on major pieces of legislation there would be further time provided to the Parliament so that, at least, we can consider the details. It is fine for me, having been directly involved in it as the spokesperson, perhaps not to have as much time as others should have but colleagues who would like to take a keener interest in the bill and understand in more detail the bill really have not had much time.

I say that appreciating fully that there has been a long period of consultation. But members do not know, until the bill is tabled in the House, exactly what the final form will be and, as the Premier knows and the ministers know, members tend not to address their minds to the details until that bill is formally introduced. And it is difficult for members, with all the work that they do, the other matters they are attending to within their own responsibilities - because everyone on this side of the House has their own areas of responsibility - to have the time in such a short space to deal fully with the details.

The bill is a re-write of the 1948 act, sorry 1984 act -

Members laughing.

Mr GROOM - The 1984 act - '48 might be a Freudian slip. And we have to say on this side of the House, yes, it was timely that there should be a re-write of that act. That act, as has mentioned, was very prescriptive and had a lot of detail in it. There were some modern concepts that needed to be brought into a modern act and there should be further content that is of a modern kind to be introduced into this latest up-to-date piece of legislation.

We are pleased that the bill does set out State Service Principles. I note that both the State Service Principles and the Code of Conduct are plucked almost verbatim from the Commonwealth precedents in the development of Commonwealth legislation. There are some changes which are quite interesting in the comparisons between the two. The State Service Principles are the basic principles; then there is a little bit more detail in the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct complements the State Service Principles.

I will make a brief comment here and I will go into it in more detail later, and that is that we are the Government for the people, and we should not lose sight of the fact that ultimately we are here to serve the public. And I do believe that when you look at the State Service Principles there is a need for higher priority to be given to this concept of public service and providing the appropriate recognition of the importance of service to the public. The old act before the 1984 act was called the Public Service Act until changed in 1984. But I want to make the point a little later on when we go through the detail that we do need to reinforce, I believe, in the State Service Principles this notion of service to the community.

Service should be prompt; it should be courteous - and the word 'courteous' was in the Commonwealth precedent but is not in the bill now before the House. And I think it is an important word to be included. Also I believe that we should respect the privacy and confidentiality of individual matters dealing with the affairs of individual citizens of our community and I could not see - correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe I am wrong - any recognition of this need for privacy and confidentiality in dealing with the personal affairs of citizens of our State by members of our State Service. I think that is something that we need to seriously consider because there can be a message in that for all of us to respect, in certain situations, the privacy of the individual.

Apart from the State Service Principles and the Code of Conduct, the bill also provides for a State Service Commissioner to be appointed and that person will assume a very heavy burden of responsibility because he or she will take over the roles of the Commissioner for Public Employment, the Commissioner for Review and also some functions carried out by the Secretary of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. So that is a new role and I think some of the unions were concerned earlier that there may be some conflict. I do realise that most of the concerns felt by unions acting on behalf of employees in our State Service have been resolved to their satisfaction. I know there have been changes to the bill which have allayed the concerns but not all the concerns have been allayed. And I am aware from individuals that there continue to be some concerns felt by members of the State Service of Tasmania.

The issue of employment and the categories of employment is one that we need to discuss in a bit more detail. In the original draft bill there was this concept of continuing employment to replace the term 'permanent employment' and that did cause some concern. I can understand that concern because if you change something from 'permanent' to 'continuing' it raises some doubts in the minds of people about what their true status is. I believe the Government was wise to bring back the original term 'permanent', although I suppose there are some people out there who say, 'Well, my job's not permanent so why should the jobs in the public sector be permanent?' In a sense they are not but there should be a degree of permanence and I will go into this in a bit more detail.

I believe very strongly in the notion of an independent apolitical public service of the professional kind serving our community. Governments come and go and the public sector has to respond to the policies and programs of the Government of the day - that is democracy - but having this continuity or a high degree of permanence there I think does protect the public interest and is something that we do have in Australia and in Tasmania which not many other parts of the world enjoy to the same degree. But maybe this is being eroded to some extent. If you look at the American situation with the current debacle over the election of the President it is amazing how just about every official has his or her politics and they announce it. Not all of them announce it but most of them have it, so you are either a Democrat or Republican or you are something else -

Mr Llewellyn - Yes, but they all get appointed don't they - appointed by the administration.

Mr GROOM - Yes. When the Governor comes in he just about replaces everyone in the upper echelons of the public sector with his or her own appointees. That happens to some extent here in terms of your own ministerial offices - the Premier's office - and certain key roles but generally speaking the job goes on.

Mr Jim Bacon - It is something like 6 000 in the US that the President appoints on taking office.

Mr GROOM - Yes. Some years ago I went to visit the Governor of Colorado and he had a whole department that dealt with appointments. He had something like 30 people employed full time to deal with his appointments so that he had his people in all sorts of positions serving him. That is how politics works over there but it is different here and I think we have a great advantage in having to a very large extent an apolitical public sector.

People can still have their political views but despite their political views people can still act in a very professional manner and in a very apolitical manner in doing their job. As Government we had people who had worked for the previous Labor Government and they did a very good job and were very professional - some of them are now working for your Government - but they are very responsible people; they do not leak stuff to us, they do not give us information.

Mr Jim Bacon - I'm sure you'll let us know if they do.

Mr GROOM - Yes, but I assure you those people do not, that is the thing.

There is to be no maximum age limit which is interesting, which was mentioned by the Premier. Their appeal rights - I know there are still some concerns about certain areas around this question of the rights of the employees in our State Service, especially when their positions are terminated and they believe there has been unfair dismissal - this problem of the hiatus when you have been terminated and you go to the appropriate industrial tribunal for redress and you do not get paid in the meantime. This can go on for some months in a worst-case scenario, whereas under the current act, as I understand it, the person continues to receive their entitlements, salary or whatever it is until that point. If they are reinstated then of course there is no problem. Under the new bill if they are reinstated they have to get their salary and entitlements but there is that gap and that seems certainly to be unfair - that is something we can talk about later on with other matters that are contained in the bill. The Premier has mentioned certain bodies which stay under the State Service or which come in under it and vice versa and we have the details about that.

I would like to make a few brief remarks about our State Service. I have made some already but having served as a minister for some years and Premier and in other positions, I do believe we have an excellent State Service. When you go away to major conferences, Premiers' Conference and so on with people, the advice and support you get is as good as any of the States or Territories get. They do a first-class job and they are very competent people. It is easy to put them down and sometimes people criticise them very unfairly. Sometimes people in the private sector say, 'Oh, the department should have done this, should have done that - they are fools or whatever' but often they would be surprised if they were in that same position how badly they might perform because government is complex and democracy requires that those making decisions have to consult, have to take into account the views of the community. It is very different from running, say, your own business where you can make the decisions and get on with it and that is great but if you are in the position of being an elected person accountable to the Parliament, accountable to the people ultimately, then it is a little bit more complex and it does take more time to make decisions. It is not quite as simple or black and white as it might be in other areas of our community.

One of the more absurd propositions that I have heard put is this idea that we could be run by a board of directors. People say this, 'We shouldn't have a government, we shouldn't have the public service; we should just have a board of directors'. Well, who appoints or elects the board of directors and who do they have?

Mr Smith - The board does.

Mr GROOM - 'The board does', says my colleague.

Mr Hidding - The only ones who would say that are one-man boards, anyway; what they're saying is they want to run the place on their own.

Mr GROOM - Yes, it is a pretty crazy idea coming from people who should know better. It does not make much sense but I suppose it grabs a headline. You could get a dictatorship which people have lost their lives fighting to overcome. Many men and women have lost their lives to fight for freedom and the system we have. This we should not overlook. You would either have a dictatorship or you would have again politicians appointing people to administer on their behalf. I will not go into that in any more detail but it is important that we do have an apolitical public service that is professional and responsive to the needs of the community.

I do believe that we should not have the American system where the place is swamped with party-political appointees. There are some people with a background appointed by most governments, whether Labor, Liberal or whatever and that is understandable but I think it would be a very bad thing for this country, this State if we suddenly had holus-bolus, just about everyone appointed who actually had your political colour and you did not appoint other people.

I said before that I am disappointed that in the State Service Principles there is not this response to the needs of the community to the degree I feel it should be spelt out there, that there should be a greater emphasis on serving the public. We need a responsive public service, we need timely answers to inquiries and correspondence. Some of these are matters of detail and maybe it is not appropriate to have them set out in these basic principles but there are perhaps ways this could be worded, showing courtesy to people at all times and there is nothing more difficult than being in a shop-front situation dealing with the public. It is a tough position if you are in a housing department. You are dealing with inquiries. Or in a hospital inquiries arrangement; it is difficult, it is tough and hard on the public servants - they are getting criticism, they are sometimes being abused. It is not always easy to show courtesy but that should be the approach at all times.

Respect for privacy and confidentiality I have mentioned. I think that is important - and full and proper consultation on major initiatives where something has been developed as has occurred here, maybe that could be set out in these principles or at some appropriate place.

I also raise the matter of pecuniary interests. Members of parliament are obliged to make a statement of pecuniary interests. I express this just as a thought, not a final view on behalf of the Opposition, but heads of agency, perhaps you would not go beyond that - perhaps there is an argument that heads of agencies should be required to complete a pecuniary statement that might be published. There is an argument for that and I know in some jurisdictions that occurs. If ministers have to, if members of parliament have to in a position of some power and influence, then it is arguable that perhaps heads of agency also should have to. I believe that there probably is such a statement. Ministers under our previous Government had to make statements but it was not published - this was before we had to, as members of parliament, publish pecuniary interests.

Mr Jim Bacon - A bit of conflict of interest in the code of conduct.

Mr GROOM - Yes, a general conflict of interest. I am just suggesting - question mark - maybe at some point in the future there will be further arguments that heads of agency - you would not go through all members of the public sector, that would be absurd, but maybe the very senior people who are in a very influential position, and I would have to say it is probably more influential than the private or backbench members of parliament. They are dealing with major issues, contractual arrangements, all sorts of things and I am not reflecting on them because I have no evidence of wrongdoing, but perhaps there is an argument there that they should complete some sort of pecuniary interest statement that should be published along the lines of that which ministers are required to complete and have published.

There is also the matter of the receipt of gifts. We have rules about gifts being received. I cannot see anything in the statement about that, although there is a reference to gifts, that you should not use improper information and so on with a view to influencing people to give you a gift or to gain some other benefit or advantage.

There is an argument that that should go further and that that should actually provide detailed arrangements as to when - I think there are some rules about that to apply to the public sector. The Premier could remind me about this, but they are not published and maybe something could be published in the act which could detail that. I do appreciate the fact that the bill does have wide support and we have contacted some of the key unions just to make sure that they were satisfied. The general view is that the bill does satisfy the concerns that the unions had. As I say, in respect to certain individuals there remain some concerns about the bill and the fact that perhaps it does not protect employees to the extent that it might.

There was concern about this notion that you could be transferred out of an agency into an authority, for example, in the local council as a sort of mandatory thing and that has been overcome in some of the amendments. There were broader concerns about appeal rights; the review process appears to have satisfied most of those particular issues.

There are some outstanding matters in the public sector: one is maternity leave. When you look at the matter of maternity leave, it is an interesting issue and we have fallen well behind most other States in this regard. I would like to know from the Premier just where the Government is at at the moment on this. There appear to be some strange anomalies. I think the AEU has argued, probably correctly, that with respect to teachers who are also public servants employed by the Education Department, the female giving birth has fewer rights than the father who is also an employee - he has certain rights. I do not have the details in front of me here but I can get them.

Mr Smith - If the father was a public servant too?

Mr GROOM - Yes, if the father is a public servant too, he has more rights than the mother of the child who is also a teacher.

There have been general comments that, 'We are going to do something about this'. We are often mixed up with Tanzania in Africa; I am told that our rights are less than those in Tanzania.

Mr Hidding - How is that?

Mr Jim Bacon - You two had better go off and find out. I do not believe it.

Mr Hidding - Now, how do you feel?

Mr Jim Bacon - Then again, that would be the old British civil service hangover.

Mr GROOM - It is interesting and I can go through all the different countries around the world that have more rights in terms of maternity leave than we have here in Tasmania. Lots of African countries and South American countries -

Mr Hodgman - You have done your homework.

Mr GROOM - I do not want to reflect on those parts of the world, but developing countries have greater rights than we have. This is something that we would like to know, and I do not criticise the Minister for Education at all but there was some concern that those in the public sector should have at least some rights in this area and we would like to see what is happening. There is also the four over five concept that has been addressed. I think that is partially answered but some detail about that would certainly be appreciated.

The whistleblower element in this bill does not quite address all of the matters that the Government was contemplating when it was in opposition, before the election. There is sort of a semi-whistleblower provision that certainly one would argue is a step in the right direction but does not quite honour the promise that was made. Again, maybe when we get to that I suspect Ms Putt will make some comments. We probably will also have some as well on that particular matter. But, generally speaking, I would have to say when I look at the bill it seems to me to cover most of the issues.

It has been widely discussed among the agencies. One of the points made to me about discussion was that there was no significant discussion with agencies but mainly the heads of agencies and the senior people. What does it mean to human resources and those sorts of areas? There was not enough face-to-face discussion with employees. There was reliance on the access to the web site but not all people have access to the web site. Many would but not everyone does have. That is a matter of some concern.

The other concern is that we do need to ensure that there are the resources available to implement the changes contained in the bill. This is the old problem, there are great stresses and strains in terms of resources. Today I raised the matter in question time concerning special education, an area of great need. Although the Government has made certain promises and announced large amounts of money in that area, the most critical Category A students are not getting the support that many people working with those students feel that they should and deserve and these are people in the department, people who actually work in the department.

I think that is sufficient from me at this point in time, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just outlined some of our points and our concerns. I commend those involved in the process for the job that has been done. It has lasted some four years so it is quite a historic document in that sense. There are probably still some shortcomings in it and that is the reason why we have this political process of Parliament expressing its view. We are pleased that after that initial period of consultation there is further consultation here in the House.

Ms PUTT (Denison) - On behalf of the Greens I will be supporting this bill. Clearly it has been recognised for some time that there has been a need to overhaul the old State Service Act 1984 and there has been a fairly thorough and lengthy process to do that. As has already been observed it has extended longer than the life of this Parliament and actually commenced under the previous government.

I would also like to thank the Premier for the briefing that I received from Mr Vines last week - that was most helpful. I am pleased to discover that the unions have had their fears ameliorated and dealt with during the process that has taken place this year.

I am interested in the insertion of the State Service Principles into the act as a good way of expressing in a positive manner what the State Service is all about and then the adoption also within the act of a State Service Code of Conduct for employees to abide by. It makes good reading to look through and see what is required of the State Service and what is then required under that of employees, and in general I would not have any quarrel with it.

I suppose one of the matters that should at least be highlighted at this stage is paragraphs (b) and (c) of the State Service Principles; (b) says, 'the State Service is a public service in which employment decisions are based on merit' and then (c) 'the State Service provides a workplace that is free from discrimination and recognises and utilises the diversity of the community it serves'. Obviously both those matters are extremely important and putting them together means that there is an allowance there for affirmative action where necessary and that is a change that I think is very important for us in Tasmania.

As a woman, I suppose I have had a particular interest in watching how changes in community beliefs and perceptions about the place of women in society and in employment and in decision making are translated into reality in places like the State Service and I know that, if you simply wait for things to flow through by some sort of organic process, you can be waiting an awfully long time.

Somebody has calculated, to memory, that it is going to take us something like 60 years of waiting before we get a quality of representation of women in decision-making roles in the public service and in the senior echelons of the public service - this is an Australia-wide estimation. If we simply wait for it to happen and flow through, now that we have principles of equity, in fact in order to achieve something longer than an entire working lifetime and then some away we are going to perhaps to have to look at affirmative action and I am sure that in Tasmania, in some of the agencies which are very heavily male-dominated, we need to think about it.

Similarly there is a concern about representation of diversity of the community in the Public Service and one of the aspects that has been particularly discussed over years is the representation of people with an indigenous heritage in our public service and how we can get them into some of the key positions that would benefit the State Service as a whole and Tasmania as well of course that particular part of our community. It is my understanding that this change actually makes it a little easier to take those proactive affirmative decisions where they are necessary and I am pleased to see it there.

The Greens have had a concern over the years about the need for whistleblower protection and in particular for protection of whistleblowers in the State Service. Greens member Di Hollister introduced in 1994 a state service amendment bill - I think she may have actually introduced it prior to that as well but I have a record here anyway of the first reading in May 1994 which attempted to deal with the need for public servants to be able to speak out in the public interest.

The whistleblower protection that we see contained in this bill, in clause 10, subclause (5), states that 'An officer or an employee must not victimise, or discriminate against, another officer or employee because that officer or employee has reported breaches (or alleged breaches) of the Code of Conduct to the Commissioner or a Head of Agency'.

That means that the whistleblower protection that we see in this bill is basically restricted to protecting people who blow the whistle on breaches of the Code of Conduct. While the Code of Conduct covers a lot of matters, I do not think it covers all the matters that the Greens, at any rate, would have wanted to cover in an amendment to the State Service Act to achieve whistleblower protection. In her bill of 1994 to amend the State service act it was to be an act to amend the Tasmanian State Service Act 1984 by providing that State servants be permitted to comment publicly on government policy in certain circumstances and it does not seem that this whistleblower protection extends that far. The preamble to Mrs Hollister's bill said, 'Whereas the informed contribution to debate on an issue can be stimulated by allowing State servants to speak out in certain circumstances and whereas good government is dependent upon informed public opinion, be it enacted'. And then it made the changes so that section 54 of the principal act was amended by omitting paragraphs (h) and (h)(i) and replacing them with another paragraph. Now, (h) and (h)(i) dealt with an employee who:

'without the permission of the Minister administering the Agency in which the employee is employed, makes any communication or contribution, directly or indirectly, and whether anonymously or otherwise, on any matter affecting the Agency in which the employee is employed, the position held by the employee or the employee's powers, functions and duties as an employee to any newspaper or publication of a like nature other than -

(i) in the course of being a member of a professional ... organisation'.

So, in other words there was no ability to speak out on government policy as it is being administered through the agency in that act. And I think that is mostly translated through to the new act so that we would still have problem with it. The idea of the Greens amendment to the old act was that we would delete those sections that said that a member of the agency could not speak but we would insert a proviso in it, that it would be an offence for an employee to divulge information where such divulgence of information involved a breach of confidentiality or may result in harm in being caused to members or sections of the community or may result in the violation of a person's privacy. And of course the reference to confidentiality was taken to exclude government policy whether past or present.

What has happened in the new act is that we still have, under the State Service Code of Conduct, under subclause (7) -

'An employee must maintain appropriate confidentiality about dealings of and information acquired by, the employee in the course of that employee's State Service employment.'

I think it can be translated that goes to matters of policy. So we still have a gap between the Greens' aspiration for there to be a broader ability for members of the State Service to speak out and what is achieved in this bill although I do acknowledge that you have actually provided some whistleblower protection for employees within the agency when they see some other employee doing the wrong thing and they report it. Obviously we need those sorts of breaches to be brought to attention and for that person not to suffer a penalty as a result. But we also need broader whistleblower protection.

I am aware that there has been a discussion paper out on a whistleblower protection act and that there has been a call for public submissions on that. But again this matter has not been expressly dealt with there either, in the terms in which the Greens would like to see it addressed, at any rate. So there remains that problem for us in terms of the ability for State public servants to blow the whistle.

I do not think there is a lot else that I really need to comment on here. The previous member went through a number of the other matters and I would assume that some of the fine details that he was referring to would be part of procedural matters that would have been put into regulations rather than into the main body of the legislation. But of course clarification on that would be welcome. I also think that is it a good idea to reinstate the role of the commissioner as an independent position and a watchdog role that reports directly to the Parliament. That is an important principle in the way that we manage our public service.

With those words, Mr Speaker, I reiterate that I will support this bill on behalf of the Greens, subject to our reservations about the extent of whistleblower protections contained therein.

Mr HIDDING (Lyons - Deputy Leader of the Opposition) - Thank you, Mr Speaker and Mr Deputy Speaker, as you both appear to be occupying the Chair at the same time.

Mr Jim Bacon - Two great minds together.

Mr HIDDING - Yes - there is a line there but I will not go into it.

This is a very important piece of legislation and one that I have been aware of for quite a number of years that it has been in the making. It is one of those pieces of legislation that sits out there and goes through the process and the longer it is in the process the more desensitised to it people become. I remember well my former colleague, Ron Cornish, often used to speak about having another session working on the State Service Bill and that was three years ago now, so there has been a power of work done on this matter and I congratulate everybody involved for finally bringing this bill forward. It has brought agreement in this House, that is obvious, and that is good; it is the way it ought to be.

There are 25 000-odd - actually, they are not that odd - public servants in this State -

Mr Jim Bacon - Some of them are very odd!

Mr HIDDING - who, it is fair to say, now that the legislation has finally come forward, have expressed some concern. I remember I did a stint on the Liberal stand at the Launceston Show and I had three people in a morning saying to me, ' very conservative'.

Mr Best - That's a lot!

Mr Jim Bacon - That's about how you're travelling at the moment - three in a whole morning!

Government members laughing.

Mr HIDDING - No, let me take an hour or so to tell you about the other 300 people I spoke to -

Members laughing.

Mr HIDDING - who had problems with all areas of your policies, Mr Premier. But I had three very nervous public servants who said to me, 'This State Service Act is a terrible thing', and I had to say to them, 'Well, have you had any input into this? Have you raised this before?' and they said they had not and they had been there for quite some time.

I suppose the process has grown up around them and finally, as always, when you get it to the Parliament there is some last-minute skittishness about various things that have been worked up over a long period of time. That is not to say it is not our job to have a close look at this because, as our spokesman on this matter has said, we had a considerable number of formal and informal submissions made to us on this matter. People see the role of the Opposition in this House as an important one at times like this and want their day in court; they want their matter raised and discussed and give the opportunity to the Premier to place on the record either in the second reading debate or in Committee his view on what this means and why this is changing and what it really means on the ground for all these public servants.

If I may be allowed a personal reminiscence, I remember when I was a sixteen-year-old callow youth, my parents said that I should go on to higher education but when I was caught for the third time - this was at the end of Year 11 at matriculation, when Dr Patmore was there at the same time, breezing through his exams much better than I was, I can tell you - heading off down the street to the snooker parlour - my father was a builder and where he was building at the time somebody said to him, 'I'm looking for a boy for a job', and my father basically took me by the ear and said, 'You start tomorrow'. That is how hard it was to get jobs back in the late 1960s and early 1970s; there was plenty of work around.

But people still said to me, 'If you want to be really secure, you have to get a public service job', so after a year or so a public service job came up and I took a position in the agricultural department in Lower George Street, and I was only there for about four months before I went to Western Australia and it was certainly different from the short time I had spent in private employment. It was archaic: the typing pool was a room about this size with about, I seem to remember, 25 or 30 women typing and there was the elderly lady up the front who was the boss of the typing pool and she handed out the work. I was the mail boy and I would go in at ten minutes to five in order to pick up the last lot of mail and there were all the women standing next to their desks, with their handbags on their arms, waiting -
Mr Jim Bacon - Ready to bowl you over more than likely.

Mr HIDDING - for the six-minutes-to-five bell to go. It was a very structured, very organised existence that did not suggest that there was a heck of a lot of natural productivity occurring and it certainly had a very different feel. But, by all accounts, if you got a job there you were going to stay there for life. You had the opportunity to go through - move slowly through - the system but you did not have any worries about losing your job. If you applied for a job and you did not get it, you could appeal and appeal, or somebody could appeal against you - it was a different existence and, to a degree, there is a perception amongst the broader community that is not accurate. I have found in the short time that I have been in this job that I have had to speak to people in business and say, 'Look, don't think that being in the public service is necessarily as different as it used to be'. In fact, the good horsepower in human resource management in this State is employed by the public sector. That is not to say they have not been outside working in various human resource positions but, given that it is the huge employer that it is, it is appropriate that there is a strong body of expertise in the management of these public servants within our system and I am pleased to say that that is generally the case.

My colleague pointed out that certainly in the more senior areas the employees not only must be good employees, they have that extra burden of having to be apolitical and it is a privilege in our open and free society that we can be political. We can have strong opinions about one thing or the other but it is not a smart thing to do that when you are in a public service position at anything above a medium functionary position. To be one way or the other in expressing very strong views, publicly or otherwise, is seen as being a potential detriment to your career and that is something that public servants give up in accepting their public service career.

That is not to say that they are all apolitical. There are, as my colleague pointed out, some in some positions that are seen as straight political appointments and it is appropriate that they, not so much be removed, but that they remove themselves when there is a change of government and that generally is the case. You see a small turnover of senior advisers and, quite frankly, if they were any good they are going to be fine in the outside world in any case, so they will make a living no matter where they are.

But there is a high level, I believe, of understanding of everybody in the place that, given the normal argy-bargy from time to time in politics, the huge majority of public servants are apolitical and very professional in their relationship with whichever government happens to be in power and I personally am very comfortable about the Tasmanian public service in that way. That makes me feel a little odd when there is a change of government and we heard that somebody had called in the bug sweepers, who came in and checked the Liberal rooms to make sure that people had not left behind bugs so that the new incoming Government could not listen to them and that sort of thing. The current Premier explained that he had nothing to do with that and I do not know whether former Liberal Premiers have done it or not. It seems a bit silly - if that is done and it is publicly done, it is suggesting that the public servants in there are leaving bugs around that they could listen to.

I suppose better safe than sorry but, of itself, it is not a strong expression of confidence in the people that are there. It would be much better that we treat everybody in the public service as being professional enough until proven otherwise, I suppose. But this perception, I was saying, about the public service is about the public service being a little large and cumbersome and therefore their procedures are cumbersome is to a degree borne out. I am aware of a person who has applied for a medium-level job within the public service five weeks ago when it was advertised - it might even be six weeks ago when it was advertised - and that person has just received an acknowledgment only to say that it was there. From then it has totally dropped into the ether as though the job never existed and, after a phone call, finally finding someone in that department who appeared to know something about it, and you had to actually question whether the job actually exists - I am sure it does otherwise they would not have advertised it - but whether there is a commitment from that department to even fill that job in case - I do not know - whether there is some budgetary thing that is holding them back from appointing a person but it seems to me in private enterprise, when you advertise in positions vacant, there is a strong principle at stake that you advertise accurately, that you do not breach anti-discrimination guidelines; that the job is as you make it out to be, that there are no hidden things in there about part of the $50 000 package being commission, or anything like that. That all has to be up front, that is what the public has to do. It has to be a ridgy-didge job.

There is a continuing concern amongst the broad community that there are some ducks and drakes played sometimes with public service jobs, that the jobs may either not actually exist or have already been filled, that they are going through the processes of interviewing but the job had, on a nod and a wink, already been given to someone. If this is not true then I call on the minister - who will be after the passage of this bill, the minister, the sole employer, the ministerial employer of all these people - to call on his agencies to get their hiring practices up into best practice in human resource terms. As I said, there are some particularly good practitioners of the human resource discipline within the public service, and it drags them all down to be aware, as I am, of at least one agency that is dragging its feet. I am not in a position, and I have no interest in disclosing that agency because it may well point the finger at somebody who has expressed concern and I want that person to get that job, but it is a genuine matter that I raise.

The difference now of course with public servants compared with when I took a short period in the public service is this matter of tenure. There is no longer any reason for anybody to suggest that once they get a public service job at age, say, 25, they are going to be there for the next 40 years. Their job may in fact disappear; they may not be able to be redeployed; they may, for all sorts of reasons, not be able to continue within the public service, and that is appropriate - just as appropriate as it is for anybody in business. They are as temporary in employment as most Australians - as are, quite seriously, most members of parliament unless you are a member of some Houses of Parliament. The tenure in many of these places in Australia in this day and age is not 20, 30 or 40 years as it used to be.

There is, of course, the ongoing problem of contracts. It could be a wrong perception but it seems to me that in private enterprise when there is a contract between two people they appoint their solicitors. You might employ a computer specialist for twelve months and your solicitor sends over to the person's solicitor a contract that is talked about. A few rough edges are knocked off, a letter of intent is signed, a contract is then signed and somebody begins a twelve-month employment. If during that time, there is a circumstance that the appointment is to be determined for one reason or another, there is general agreement on that or there is a phone call between solicitors to say this is the concern, and one way or another the thing is worked out.
It appears to me in the public service that there is far too much bickering over contracts and if we are now to have no temporary, we are going to have fixed period or permanent, it seems to me that this fixed-period idea is going to be subject to that same kind of perception that you enter into a contract with the Government and if you are not happy with their performance after that, then we will just try to embarrass them publicly, or whatever, and therefore a contract with a government in that way is not as strong as a contract between an employer in the private service and an employee. That of course is a nonsense, it ought to be just as effective and efficient in both sectors. I do not want to refer to the case of a previous employee of the Liberal Opposition because he has just signalled that he is going to appeal the decision, but there is this ongoing perception that it is very difficult to actually determine a contract under the terms of that contract.

I do not know whether the Government is able to come up with a better form of contract or something that has some status from employee organisations. Generally, however, you are dealing with professionals who are not necessarily members of these organisations, but one way or another it would be a good thing if government could streamline its methods of entering into contracts with part-time employees. I note that the minister may terminate people's employment. Now, we have a government at the moment, it should not go unnoticed, that has said for the term of its office, I think, 'There will be no forced redundancies' - which means that the Labor Government is working under a current policy that says that there are no forced redundancies. But this bill says that the minister may terminate, and one of the reasons is 'if unable to redeploy'. This leads us to the point where we can actually overlay a contemporary situation that is occurring in my electorate in New Norfolk where the redeployment - it is probably unfair to use real-time employees, but in a general sense the Premier might address this - where you have employees who, for instance - in one case you have an employee who for many years has earned around $45 000 to $50 000 a year because his job as a furnace man meant that, because of the very nature of the furnace, a 24 hour boiler, there had to be a lot of overtime. So that person is finding it -

Mr Jim Bacon - Is this by way of example, is it?

Mr HIDDING - Yes, that is what I just said. I did say it is probably improper in matters of debate to use a particular case in this way but in a general sense if you could address this matter - I think the human resource or the industrial lobby, I suppose, has addressed this by that concept of AWOTE, which is Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings, as the factor that determines a lot of this. But when you have a case that somebody - you are saying - sorry, I am rambling here. The Minister for Health was recently asked here what she meant when she said that somebody was industrially a permanent. What she pointed out was that if somebody, under current industrial relations arrangements, has been a casual for a number of years, that person is industrially permanent. It seems to me that there is an issue here where, if somebody has been on a certain salary level for years, that person is industrially, in the same context, on a salary of about $45 000. Then the redeployment is contemplated and that person's base salary is worth about $32 000. That person does not see that as a redeployment and neither do most of his mates who are being redeployed. Nor do a number of cleaners who have been offered jobs that are clearly outside their areas of competence. Therefore, when I last spoke to them, there did not appear to be any possibility of reasonable redeployment. Under the terms of this bill, this Government will be able to terminate employment if someone is not able to be redeployed.
I want to make the point though, the political point here, that in their minds and in the minds of people in similar circumstances around the public service, at this point they consider that the Liberals had a better policy. In fact, the Liberals would look after them better. Why? The cheque book was open.

Mr Jim Bacon - I know.

Mr HIDDING - What you have done is nail the cheque book shut.

Mr Jim Bacon - That's right.

Mr HIDDING - That is right. You have nailed the cheque book shut and said, 'Oh no, but we won't actually dispose of you'.

Mr Jim Bacon - We want people to work for us.

Mr HIDDING - 'In fact, we'll just bounce you around and put you on unattached until you get tired of it all and go away'. Whereas those people knew - and in fact many of their colleagues in the last few years with the Liberals - after many years of service they were able to sit down and work out a reasonable figure of redundancy. Now they see themselves under the Bacon Government dealing with somebody with the cheque book shut. So there is a distinct difference that -

Mr Jim Bacon - They don't want that job.

Mr HIDDING - That is right and that is a double jeopardy situation. And they understand that. They understand what you are saying. They hear very clearly what you are saying, Mr Premier, but they are scratching their heads and wondering how their vote for the champion of the workers that brought this Labor Government about could have them talking very regularly with the Liberals saying that we should come back. For venal reasons, of course.

Mr Jim Bacon - So they can get their redundancy and tip you out again.

Mr HIDDING - Our cheque book was not nailed shut like yours is. It is a serious matter. What we have here is a situation where we have a government that says that there will be no forced redundancies yet you are building into your legislation the ability for a minister to terminate. Now, what is that about? Does that mean that after the next election, should you retain government, you will not maintain your policy of no forced redundancies? You must admit and I would ask you to address in your second reading speech how this is not at odds with your policy.

Mr Jim Bacon - I terminated someone the other day.

Mr HIDDING - Did you, well -

Mr Jim Bacon - It had nothing to do with a redeployment situation.

Mr HIDDING - No, well generally, what was that for?

Mr Jim Bacon - Because an offence has been committed.

Mr HIDDING - That is a little different - nobody would take exception at that; it is a matter of safety and commonsense that an employer would manage a work force in that way. We would not raise any challenge to that at all. But what I am saying is: you have, as a Labor Government, a policy that says no forced redundancies and you are writing into this State Service bill an ability to terminate. It just does not seem right and I would be interested in your explanation of why that is.

I also pick up in the background notes of this that there will be no maximum age of employment under the State Service. I take it that currently when you get to age 65 you are required to retire. This provision has the strong support of this side of the House as the person who is the spokesman for this side of the House on matters of seniors. It is a matter that has been raised with us and I know with the Government, over quite some time, that even though there is a tendency towards earlier retirements rather than later retirements, it is an anachronism to have an age-related provision that says when you get to 65 we just do not want you any more. You are either not competent or you ought to get out and make room for a young person. Well that does not reflect good practice and it is probably discriminatory and so therefore -

Mr Rundle - Does that mean I can go on a bit longer?

Mr HIDDING - You, Mr Rundle, can go on; you are only just now coming to your prime.

Mr Jim Bacon - That's why we've amended it, so he can stay here; we want him here forever.

Mr Rundle - Good on you, Jim.

Mr HIDDING - You enjoy his company so much that you want him to stay.

Mr Jim Bacon - No, you keep us sober here though.

Mr HIDDING - If it is 65, Mr Rundle has years and years left to go.

Mr Rundle - Absolutely. If I was in China, I would be just wet behind the ears.

Mr Hodgman - Only a boy.

Mr HIDDING - He is only a boy, especially the way he is looking lately at about 52 kilos of weight, he could ride in the next Hobart Cup.

Mr Jim Bacon - On a health kick, planning a comeback.

Mr Rundle - Yes.

Mr HIDDING - Oh, is that what it is?

Mr Jim Bacon - That is what they told me the other day up at the Devonport office.

Mr Rundle - That's right, the comeback kid.

Mr HIDDING - So this side of the House certainly gives that the big tick. I want to say that when this bill passes the Parliament, it will be a good day for seniors in Tasmania because there will be official recognition that when you turn 65 you can still be of terrific value to your employer is an appropriate position to take. Mr Speaker, as has been explained, we will be having a good look at this bill. This, with its cognate bills, is a mountain of legislation in itself. As the Manager for Government Business strolls back into the House, I also want to say that the belligerent attitude of saying, 'You will sit here until you have done it tonight' is -

Mr Jim Bacon - Oh.

Mr HIDDING - Well, you were not in the House, Premier. I mean, what else is being said?

Mr Jim Bacon - You were here when Ronnie Cornish was here; he used to give us a list of eight bills and say, 'You're not going home until you've finished them all'.

Mrs Bladel - That's right.

Mr HIDDING - Well, next time I see him I will address that with him but -

Mr Jim Bacon - We had the gag before we start debating the bills.

Mr HIDDING - I think that might be a little apocryphal but -

Mrs Bladel - No, it's not, is it?

Mr Jim Bacon - I can remember the night.

Mr HIDDING - to be told by the Government tonight, 'You will sit here until you pass this legislation' is not the right way to address what is very important legislation that has general tripartite support. It is just not -

Mr Best - You only got up to when you were sixteen years old -

Mr HIDDING - Sorry?

Mr Best - In your speech, you didn't get to when you were seventeen, you only were up to when you were sixteen years old.

Mr HIDDING - No, I was allowed 60 seconds of a personal reminiscence, Mr Best, and I am sure when you get up to speak -

Mrs Bladel - Start again, I missed it.

Mr HIDDING - to support this legislation, as I am sure you will, that you will give us a bit of your background too. But with that, Mr Speaker, we -

Mr Best - It would be a bestseller.

Mr Rundle - These weren't our family-friendly hours, they were yours, not ours.

Mr Best - If I told you about my family background, it would be a best seller.

Mr HIDDING - do give support to this bill and look forward to looking at it.

Mr HODGMAN (Franklin) - Let the record stand that the legislation before us, as our Leader pointed out, was introduced last Thursday; we are debating it on Tuesday. I consider myself a professional practitioner in parliamentary matters and I believe that the handling of this legislation is almost forcing us to be somewhat unprofessional. If you look at the width of legislation currently before your Chamber, Mr Speaker, it is particularly difficult to go through it and be expert on every aspect of it. I think that is a dreadful way of passing legislation and clearly having to debate this legislation late into the night by exhaustion pays lip service to what is truly a very important matter that would be of great interest to public servants throughout Tasmania. I believe they would want to know that Parliament carefully considered the matters relating to their employment, their code of conduct and the general broad spectrum that they create a career under. I mean, when in government we regularly used to honour public servants who had been in positions for 30, 40 or 50 years, a lifelong commitment to the service of the people of Tasmania, and in a mere 24 hours their past, present and future is just being whooshed through this House. It is appalling; it is absolutely appalling. I believe it treats the public servants of Tasmania with utter disrespect. I believe certainly with the Premier and his union background -

Mr Jim Bacon - It's been on the Web for months, Peter. If you could get through all the casinos and porn sites on the Liberal thing you could find it all on the Web. We've been studying it for months.

Mr HODGMAN - Quite honestly, what a pathetic interjection to a serious matter.

Mr Hidding - Don't be led by the Mercury , Jim.

Mr HODGMAN - The Premier with his union background I am sure would have a great understand of the membership of no doubt unions when he was involved, but more so as Premier, the broad spectrum of public servants who do give a career commitment to this State, and their commitment is being enshrined in this legislation and being carefully, I would have thought, considered by this Parliament, but not so. Within 24 hours this legislation will whoosh through this House, go up to the Legislative Council, and that, I believe, does treat the public service with utter disrespect.

Mr Jim Bacon - Absolute nonsense.

Mr HODGMAN - It is true. It is legislation by exhaustion. I would say that this legislation, if it was properly handled in this House -

Mr Jim Bacon - I had some good teachers: Ron Cornish, number one.

Mr HODGMAN - would provoke good debate and a good commitment -

Mr Jim Bacon - He wouldn't have let all this nonsense go on for hours and hours. Would have moved the gag already.

Mr HODGMAN - and at least give the public servants an understanding that Parliament does respect what they do. But a lot of our members on this side of the House will be talking about this issue late into the evening. We will all get tired, we will all get crabby. You have missed out on doing something that you are supposed to do at Moonah, and we all have commitments that will be shelved, because there is no way you can leave this legislation without making some comment and contribution to it. We are talking about careers of your total public service, and what justification do you have? It is not as if the world is going to fall apart tomorrow, or the next day. Come and sit on Friday -

Mr Jim Bacon - The trouble is we could have left it till next year and you still wouldn't have read it. You haven't read it now.

Mr HODGMAN - Sorry?

Mr Jim Bacon - You haven't read it now. You still wouldn't have read it next March.

Mr HODGMAN - I am not talking about reading it. I am talking about debating it.

Mr Jim Bacon - It wouldn't matter when we called it on.

Mr HODGMAN - Of course it would. With due respect to the Premier, let me lay this on the table: if you treat legislation in a cavalier way, you are a very short-term member in this Parliament.

Mr Jim Bacon - Is that right?

Mr HODGMAN - I think so, and many have come and gone because they have not studied the legislation, and got caught out in regard to it. I have always treated seriously the passage of legislation in the Parliament, twelve years in another place, and my period of time down here, and quite frankly -

Mr Jim Bacon - Well, of course you're a fine example of someone who always treats legislation with the utmost seriousness.

Mr HODGMAN - I do.

Mr Jim Bacon - I am talking about the Speaker, of course.

Mr HODGMAN - He would not be impressed by this shonky performance.

Mr Hidding - No, he would not. If he was able to speak, he'd be up there -

Mr HODGMAN - He'd be up there giving you a right royal rocketing, and you deserve it, too. You thoroughly deserve it.

Mr Groom - Don't bring the Speaker in. He's above all this.

Mr HODGMAN - He will see this as a blot on his copybook, that this House is railroading through non-controversial legislation, good legislation that ought to be carefully considered. Can I just say from my time in government as a minister I have the utmost respect for the general public service. I had eleven portfolios and a good working relationship with all of them. There were testing times, of course, in some instances but that is the nature of government and the minister.

Mr Speaker, I have certainly considered the legislation. I would draw to the Premier's attention, powers of the minister and ministerial direction. It always concerns me somewhat when guidelines are put in but invariably they are restrictions being put in. Clause 14 says:

'The Minister may issue Directions which relate to the administration of the State Service and which have effect according to their tenor unless they are inconsistent with or repugnant to other provisions of this Act'.

And, I dare say, other acts. One of the areas where that whole section worries me - and I say this to the Premier, it doesn't matter whether it is the incumbent or a future Premier - with a reduced number in this Parliament, with the bureaucracy getting stronger - the old saying that ministers come and go but the bureaucracy lives on for ever - clause 14 really causes me some concern of the erosion of power of the minister.

I cite an example. When I took over the portfolio as minister for planning I assumed, as minister for planning, I would have some discretion and direction and involvement, and I was very promptly told, 'No, minister. Your job is to appoint the relevant boards and from that point on you are removed'. You might as well abolish the position of minister for planning. In regard to clause 14, if you relate the role of the minister to the acts, there are quite a few acts such as where you have referred them to GBEs and other areas where the minister's power is getting less and less, and you, as a Premier, when you go to the people saying, 'We are elected to govern', I think, with all the best will in the world, under these particular clauses the more you try to spell out what the role of the minister is, invariably what you end up having is less control by the minister and greater control by the bureaucracy. In a sense that is great in opposition to watch a minister have his hands tied behind, but really if we are all committed members of parliament, and the wheel goes around, we are in government, now in opposition, and so it goes on. I just say to the Premier - I do not flag this as political or aggressive or any other way - but clause 14, I think, can work just as much against the interests of a government as it works for the interests of the government in defining the role of the minister and his discretion and direction.

You have a minister for planning in David Llewellyn who would have about as much control as I had over the planning legislation, which was zilch.

Mr Jim Bacon - It is our legislation.

Mr HODGMAN - It was our legislation, we introduced it - I am saying that; I am laying it on the table.

Mr Jim Bacon - This is about State Service employees, not about how some process under legislation works.

Mr HODGMAN - No, clause 14 talks about the minister - I have read out the first clause - that his direction must be in relation to this act and not be repugnant to this act which of course would be cognate to all other acts under which a minister would operate. I dare say it is in the schedule - yes, the schedule on the back page -

Mr Jim Bacon - But this isn't just any minister, it is the minister administering the State Service Act.

Mr HODGMAN - Yes, I take your point. It is part of the problem we have, Mr Speaker, in a fairly short time to try to resolve the ambiguity of the legislation.

Mr Jim Bacon - You can read the whole thing if it makes it any easier for you.

Mr HODGMAN - Here he is - 'Read the whole thing'. With the backup of the Premier's department and a minefield of advisers in his employ it is very easy for you to sit there smug and arrogant telling us what we should and should not do.

Mr Jim Bacon - That's a very interesting term - 'a minefield of advisers'.

Mr Hidding - That's probably fairly accurate, actually.

Mr HODGMAN - Fairly accurate, I would suggest to the Premier. It always happens; you will come in here and say, 'I got crummy advice', and that is when you tread on the minefields.

Mr Jim Bacon - I agree; I think it's a very apt description.

Mr HODGMAN - You are tiptoeing around now on your honeymoon but, have no doubt, the bureaucracy will eventually catch you.

Mr Hidding - Tiptoe around in the minefield of your honeymoon.

Mr Groom - You wait till your honeymoon ends.

Mr HODGMAN - Mr Speaker, I would also draw to the attention of the Premier a matter I think perhaps not necessarily pecuniary because we all have a pecuniary interest, but looking at sections 5 and 6 of this bill, it does create a parliamentary precedent about those who seek office as a candidate at an election, when they effectively become a candidate and what happens when they do become a candidate, citing if I might as a matter of public awareness without being presumptuous it would be my intention when the Liberal Party calls for endorsements for the Federal election to seek endorsement. If I am fortunate enough to be endorsed in the new year I know the Premier will say, 'All right, on your way, Hodgman; you can't stay until the election's called' -

Mr Jim Bacon - Peter, stay, please! Don't go; you'll hate it! You won't win and you'll hate it anyway even if you do! Why do you want to go flying out of Tasmania every week? Stay! We want you to stay, don't we, Bob?

Mr Groom - I think he's being facetious.

Mr HODGMAN - I think he is too.

Mr Jim Bacon - I'm serious!

Mr HODGMAN - He will say, 'Now you've been endorsed and it is nine or ten months to the next election maybe, on your way, Hodgman', and I will say, 'No, Mr Premier', because you have brought into Parliament a clause which states that a person becomes a candidate for election as a member of a House of Parliament when nominated for that election in accordance with the law regulating the election. So effectively no matter when you are endorsed it is when the election is called that you become the candidate. That is normal practice in every other sphere.

Mr Jim Bacon - That's when it becomes an issue.

Mr HODGMAN - That is right. There have been an abundance of precedents. I think when Ken Wriedt was in the Senate and stood for the House of Representatives Denison seat he stayed on as an endorsed senator and stepped down and contested the seat of Denison. John White on the other hand I think was a member of this House; he was endorsed for a seat in the upper House and stayed on - and this election was called before that election was called - I think your own Michael Aird might be in the same situation. I have a full page of State parliamentarians who have stayed on -

Mr Jim Bacon - You've investigated this have you, Peter?

Mr HODGMAN - My word I have! When this was pointed out to me I thought this was a good opportunity to say to our honourable Premier that I have followed the course of section 5 and I will stay but I will only stay up until the point when the Federal election is called. If I happen to be endorsed -

Mr Jim Bacon - We look forward to you using this House to tell everyone how good the GST and petrol prices are for Franklin.

Mr HODGMAN - I think, having gone through eight elections without losing any, I am fully aware of what I am doing.

Mr Jim Bacon - You'd be pretty confident I should think.

Mr HODGMAN - I am fully prepared to face the consequences and might I say without being too conceited, somewhat confident of a positive outcome. However I need to be endorsed first and that is the first hurdle I have yet to clear.

Mr Jim Bacon - It's wise not to get too far ahead of yourself.

Mr HODGMAN - Exactly. I say to my Franklin electorate that I, along with many others, will be seeking that endorsement. If I am successful, well and good; if I am not then you may have your wish come true.

Mr Jim Bacon - You mean you will stay?

Mr HODGMAN - If I am not endorsed?

Mr Jim Bacon - Yes.

Mr HODGMAN - Well, I do not see any reason why I should leave; I have too much fun sitting here opposite you, watching the performance of your Government which has come through a fairly easy time but I think the worm is starting to turn. The word we are getting as we move around the electorate is that you are not necessarily still the flavour of the month, that there is a bit of aggression coming through - just a little bit here and there; pockets of it and you are aware of that. What you are aware of and what we are all aware of is an important piece of legislation addressing an important part of our community, that is the public servants who work within the system. I think it really does treat them with utter indifference and scant regard to be racing this legislation through into the late hours of tonight. But that is the intention of this Government and I for one register my strong protest in regard to that and support the legislation.

Mrs SWAN (Lyons) - Can I commence by saying that I am grateful for the briefing we received the other day with regard to the legislation. We found that most constructive, I have to say, and I thank the Premier for allowing that to occur. As we have indicated, we are of course supportive of the legislation and we are well aware that it has been subjected to a very long period of consultation that commenced in 1997. I am further informed that in detail there may have been some changes but in general principle that bill has not altered from the position that it occupied at the last election. While there have been a number of drafts and additions to the situation that we reached at that particular time there has not been, other than detailed changes, any massive change in the general principle of the bill.

I do have to say that with legislation of this order where there is such a huge amount to go through it makes it somewhat complex and difficult to do a proper inspection in a short period of time. I will once again make the comment that we regard it as not appropriate for the Government to be applying an inferred gag by sitting the House until it finally comes up with the passing of this legislation through the Assembly. We think that is inappropriate. And as we have made the point on numerous occasions in the past the problem is that we are finding, as we go through legislation, that there are any number of ordinary drafting errors that should be subjected to an ordinary scrutiny process by this House that would not only be useful for the Opposition with regard to argument but clearly helpful to the Government with regard to presenting proper legislation for the Council to further scrutinise when the bill reaches their jurisdiction.

In principle we understand that the unions are happy with the arrangements that they have in front of them, that the ANF has signed off, that HACSU after having some original problems with the bill has now settled down and feels that the bill is suitable for them and that the CPSU is similarly satisfied. My colleague is indicating that there have been some indications put to him at least that there are some concerns still reflected within the union movement with regard to some aspects of the bill.

But as presented to us in general we have been told that there is an agreement that this is the best that can be done with a huge rewrite of a bill that has obviously taken a great deal of time and a great deal of consultation. I did note with a degree of interest, and the Premier might be able to reinform me if I am incorrect, that in the second reading speech there was not in fact a reference that I could observe at least of the TCCI and while we had direct reference to the consultation that had taken place on the web site and agencies and the TTLC I could not find a direct reference, although I am informed through the briefing that they were consulted and did indeed agree with the principles of the bill.

As we said today during the debate on the sitting hours, it is of course important that a bill like this is generally acceptable to the business community because of course it can act as a lead act with regard to conditions of employment and the sorts of things that the work force generally take to be part and parcel of working conditions. So entitlements and conditions are driven by an important piece of legislation. That can indeed be reflected through the whole of the work force in Tasmania and it is of utmost importance that the private sector and the Chamber of Commerce look at it and deal with it and generally feel comfortable with the provisions that are being applied, because none of us will argue that it has some ripple effect as it is observed by other people in employment and that of course is quite critical.

We notice with approval the setting up of the State Service Principles and believe that the philosophy, if you like, that is reflected in having a set of principles that underline a number of the major concepts or all of the major concepts to do with employment is important. I think the member for Denison will already have indicated the view that he takes with the public service and that is of course that it is indeed a service sector, that it does indeed have a role in responding, not only to the instructions of government, to advise government and to keep government in a position where it has accurate and unbiased information, but also it has a role with regard to responding to the customer base and the public requirement because of course that is why it is set up.

It is an employment body in order to carry out services on behalf of the public sector and it is indeed like any private sector entity in that it must respond to the customers' needs and that of course has been reflected in past times, I think, set up by the previous Government under the then Premier Rundle with the taking up of customer service charters which I may well go on and ask a little more in detail about to see how many agencies have in fact adopted those charters, whether they are all, in fact, in place and how they are working as a general principle, so that that principle of responding to the customer is in fact ensured and is being monitored because again principles are a great thing. It is good to see them entrenched in legislation, but clearly it will be interesting too.

The Premier I am sure will acknowledge this: that the benchmarking of these arrangements, the performance management of them will also be important because it is all well and good to have a series of principles but if they are not being reflected in the operational basis of the public service, then of course they amount to nothing and I have no doubt that the Premier has every intention, I would imagine, of making sure that the principles are properly reflected through all aspects of employment and are indeed picked up in benchmarking and we will see some performance indicators and some responses to how agencies are performing under those principles, so that not only the Premier and his ministers and the Government but also the general public can determine how the public sector is proceeding and whether they are indeed meeting their own targets and whether they are responding in the manner in which I am sure this legislation is designed to achieve.
So, yes, we applaud the principle that that is a good idea. It is a good idea to have those principles reflected, but similarly of course it is relevant to make sure that they are in fact carried out and they are made accountable by at least being subject to some kind of public scrutiny so that we can see how the service is indeed measuring up.

There is in fact a revised definition of merit which I have had a very cursory look at at this stage, I have to say, the last one having been deemed to be inappropriate or insufficient to the job that was in front of this particular legislation. That was reflected in the old act under section 4(1) and in fact read:

'All permanent employment in the State Service should be in accordance with the merit principle which is as follows - the appointment of persons as permanent employees and the promotion of permanent employees shall be on the basis of the individual capacity of those persons or permanent employees notwithstanding any disability of those persons or employees in relation to performing the work associated with the position for which those persons or employees are seeking to be appointed or promoted, and having particular regard to the knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and potential for future development of those persons or permanent employees in their employment in the State Service.'

That has been changed under the current legislation so that it reflects what is the principle of the bill with regard to the merit principle now underlying all the conditions and entitlements and in fact the whole of the State Service Principles are in fact to be in accord with the principle of merit which, once again, is an important principle and that is taken care of under the governance of - I am just trying to find where we have it - currently I cannot.

Mr Groom - What do you need?

Mrs SWAN - The merit principle - it is not in the definitions clause, it is under the principles themselves - is in clause 7, subclause (2) and it is probably important just for the purpose of reflecting on the changes that have been made but subclause (2) is now saying:

'For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), a decision relating to appointment or promotion is based on merit if -

(a) an assessment is made of the relative suitability of the candidates for the duties; and

(b) the assessment is based on the relationship between the candidates' work-related qualities and the work-related qualities genuinely required for the duties; and

(c) the assessment focuses on the relative capacity of the candidates to achieve outcomes related to the duties; and

(d) the assessment is the primary consideration in making the decision.'

Clearly, in reading it, at least it is more flexible than the arrangement we have under 4(1) and there is obviously a broader way of viewing the merit principle as is at least listed in that new rework of that clause and it seems to me, in reading that, that that provides a greater deal of flexibility for assessing that principle of merit. It has the added benefit, of course, of being attached to the State Service Principles so, clearly, it is an important aspect of the bill.

There is again a further matter and that is the entrenchment in legislation of a code of conduct which is, I understand, based on a Commonwealth code of conduct which is currently being looked at by a number of different States and I am informed is generally viewed as a piece of model legislation and that has been picked up with minor alterations suitable for the State of Tasmania in this particular legislation.

The Code of Conduct is something that we will ask about a little further on as we get into the Committee stage because there are some aspects to the code that we think are worthy of examination and so we will be making some comment at that stage.

Another part of that, of course, is that this bill for the first time brings the single employer under the head of one minister and that is the Premier - the Premier who appoints the senior executive service and the heads of agencies - those people who are referred to as 'officers' under the bill and then in his capacity as minister for public sector employment has the ability or in fact carries out the role of being employer with regard to all other employees in the public service.

Again a sensible move, it seems to us, in that it brings uniformity and brings a series of principles under the jurisdiction of one minister which we can only assess will be helpful to the process altogether. So we would say that that seems to be a sensible move to us.

There is also under this bill the creation of a new position with regard to the State Service Commissioner. He is in fact now occupying a role that was once undertaken by a number of separate officers and that was the Commissioner for Public Employment, the Commissioner for Review and the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet who all fulfilled functions that will now be wrapped up under that one particular independent statutory officer and that, of course, is an important aspect to the bill with regard to the role that he plays in issuing directions which he is able to do. They emulate the current employment instructions that are now part and parcel of the current legislation and his independence from the process is clearly important with regard to a proper assessment because he now has the role of review with regard to the merit principle and also with regard to general complaint. So it is important that that officer is independent from the process and can deliver the kind of non-partisan judgment that he will be required to respond to.

One of the areas that I know was of concern to the public service and to the unions in particular was the aspect of continuing employment - that must be a helicopter, is it?

Mr Jim Bacon - It's too noisy for a helicopter.

Mrs SWAN - You have given approval for that thing to go ahead, have you?

Mrs Napier - No, I don't think I will agree to helicopters being down there.

Mr Jim Bacon - I reckon it'd be a jumbo jet of some description.

Mrs SWAN - Approval must have gone through in the last few minutes.

Mr Rundle - He's giving them their last browse as he says, 'Goodbye, Battery Point Anti-Progress Association'.

Mrs SWAN - That is absolutely right, something has happened.

But obviously as far as the concept of permanent employment is concerned, that was clearly of importance to the union movement and to employees in general. Their view was that continuing employment was not satisfactory to them and we now have adopted in this legislation the concept of permanence, and I do understand the reality of employees approaching bank managers and people who hand out loans and those sorts of things where there is a need to provide security for various contractual arrangements. Clearly that is better provided by the concept of permanency than it is by 'continuing employment' so I have a full understanding why the bill reflects that particular concept.

There is another aspect that I found of interest and that was the aspect of what we called the old unattached list. That, I gather, was subject to a degree of debate - the concept of the old unattached list - and I know that there was some debate about having that as an open-ended arrangement whereby employees whose jobs were lost in the system went on a list for longer than the current twelve months, they were in fact kept on an open-ended arrangement and they were then available for rehiring through agencies.

Clearly that was a totally unworkable provision with regard to employment in the service so what has been achieved is a return to that concept of twelve months on the unattached list with a further provision and, as I pointed out, that is something that is not necessarily part and parcel of every private employment arrangement. That is a particular win inside the service but we have offset that to a certain degree by saying that the commissioner can in fact issue directions with regard to the placement of those people that will accord with their skills and their current duties and will in fact make, I think, a more productive use of that particular officer, and the head of agency is in fact required to carry out the instruction that is given by the commissioner and make the best use of that employee in accord with the directions given.

That gives a capacity to use the particular employee in a way that is suitable to their talents and skills and hopefully will do the very best to lift and maintain or develop as much productivity as is possible out of that particular individual. That is not to say that those who are on that list are not productive. It is simply to say that this gives the opportunity to fully realise on productivity by looking at appropriate ways of using those person's skills when they are out on that particular list rather than simply consign them to a series of jobs that may not necessarily make the best use of their talents so I certainly think that there is a useful mechanism in adopting that particular provision.

There is also an aspect in terms of retraining those individuals which clearly is of importance but we all have to acknowledge in this House that that is something that is likely to be resource-hungry. Once again a laudable principle but it will need to be resourced and we all know that the resourcing of these sorts of things is not a small feat. It is something that has to be taken into account so it is the sort of thing that we will obviously be watching with regard to how the Government choses to move in upcoming budgets in order to implement what is a very helpful thing for employees who have lost positions who may wish to continue in the service, may need some sort of retraining but there will be a need obviously for that to be resourced properly for it to actually work well so we have to acknowledge that in meeting that goal there is a certain cost.

There is a requirement for a grievance resolution inside agencies and heads of agencies, I understand from the second reading, will be required to develop those systems if they have not already done so and the commissioner will then go on to determine matters that are deemed to be too serious to be dealt with by that ordinary grievance process.

I have already made mention of the fact that the commissioner will sit to hear appeal rights for review in two main areas and that is with regard to merit selection and any general grievance. I did note with interest that direct selection is now subject to a situation wherein if there is a challenge then it occurs at the front end of the argument, if you like. It occurs before the appointment is made so it is not subject to a difficult and protracted period of review with an officer being appointed and others contesting from outside; it is actually dealt with inside the system and if the challenge is made and it is deemed appropriate it is then looked at with regard to being generally advertised all over again because, as was pointed out quite obviously logically and correctly in the briefing session, anyone who challenged from position 4 with regard to a job may indeed step over 2 and 3 who may have been the more natural selection for the job and in order to do justice it was necessary to open up the whole process so that everybody who had applied got a second chance to present again and make their cases known.

Again, as has been mentioned, all industrial grievances will be dealt with by the relevant industrial tribunal and in this instance of course, too, with regard to sanctions, the minister is the person who is responsible for imposing a sanction with regard to breaches of code of conduct and that of course can mean that it is simply an investigation or it can indeed result in a suspension from duty, may indeed result in an officer losing their job if that is something that is deemed to be appropriate for the particular breach of the code.

There are in addition provisions made for reorganisations where there can be a transfer in of employees from statutory authorities to the State Service now. As has been pointed out, that currently is done in a mechanical way on each instance that that occurs rather than under the general provisions of this bill, so we have a situation where every time there is a need to take up employees who are no longer able to find jobs outside in statutory authorities in the GBEs there is a need for legislation to be brought in in order to bring them back under the State Public Service. So this encompasses that in a general provision so that it is not necessary for this to be done on every individual occasion.

It was pointed out that it applies only for employees moving in; it does not apply similarly for employees moving out. There were some aspects with regard to how the bill treats the State Service as an entity with regard to GBEs or statutory authorities, where is the body of the State Service, and under this legislation GBEs are in fact to be treated as falling outside the legislation. They are subject to the provisions of the government business enterprise legislation and do not fall within the aspect of the State Service Act.
However there are a number of specific movements away from that principle and they have all been noted in the legislation of course, and they are to do with the MAIB which was once covered by the State Service Act, the former act; they will now be treated as a GBE and their employees will not come under the provisions of this legislation. Port Arthur, while it is a GBE, will in fact come within the ambit of this particular legislation because of the feeling that Port Arthur is in a position where it needs some continuing support and help in the administrative sense that can be provided by this act and thus it has been that it is to be included within the provisions of this legislation. The TDR is a statutory authority and will reside inside this act; however, the board will continue to be an independent body. The statutory authority for Tourism, while it will maintain an independent body, is in fact now inside the State Service Act and the RBF continues under this particular act with exemptions, which is exactly the same as it is now.

So with regard to all those matters I think that simply takes account of how we understand the legislation. We support it. We have some questions that we will be putting in Committee but, in general, it seems to have approval from across the board except, as we understand it, with regard to some minor matters and some aspects that have been mentioned by the member for Denison - and he, no doubt, will be dealing with those further in the Committee stage of the bill. On that point, I will simply say that we agree with the legislation.

Mr RUNDLE (Braddon) - Mr Speaker, if you plot the path of the Tasmanian public sector over the past decade it is a period of dramatic change and I cast my mind back to the 1980s when the Field minority government gained office in 1989 and there began a very turbulent period in the history of the Tasmanian public sector. Part of that folklore was Cresap, part of it was the introduction of redundancy programs in that 1989-1990 period. I think those decisions began to bite probably in the second year rather than the first year.

So from the period of the Field minority Government in 1989 we saw a program implemented of a reduction in the numbers of public servants employed in Tasmania. At the same time we saw a similar process taking place in Victoria, South Australia and many other States. There was, after the fairly affluent and freewheeling years of the 1980s, a belt-tightening right across the nation in the 1990s; it was one that industry was involved in and naturally enough it flowed over into governments and the employees that they had on their books during that decade of the 1990s. My off-the-top-of-the-head recollection is that from 1989 until about 1998 the Tasmanian public sector was reduced by about 20 per cent and it would be interesting if the Premier has the figures available - when he responds at some time during the debate on this matter - if he is able to tell us just what the numbers are we are talking about in relation to this legislation. Who does it affect? Who are they? How many of them are there? How many full-time employees? How many part-time employees? Where are they located? There is a perception that the bulk of the public service resides in the south although I think closer examination of those figures show that there is, perhaps, a greater spread around Tasmania than most Tasmanians actually think but it would be an interesting figure to have in our minds as we debate the detail of this bill.

The reduction by approximately 20 per cent over that virtual ten-year period resulted in a recurrent savings to the Budget or to the Consolidated Fund of approximately $120 million and if the Premier or the Treasurer were to ask the head of Treasury, Don Challen, what that recurrent savings was as a result of that ten-year program they would be told somewhere between $120 and $130 million a year. That is why Dr Crean's budget surplus of half a million last year and $1 million or $2 million this year would be looking very sick indeed if no action had been taken by successive governments over that period of time to actually come to grips with what was basically a systemic or an unsustainable problem that Tasmania faced.

The budget deficit in 1989-90 was something like $170 million per annum and if you could imagine ten years of clocking up nearly $200 million a year our State debt now would not be something under $3 billion but would probably be approaching five and a half to $6 billion. If you take a figure of 170, multiply that by ten and then add some interest, you would find that the State debt would be $1.5 billion to $2 billion higher. So Dr Crean's surplus of half a million last year would have been a massive deficit and -

Mr Jim Bacon - Off the money he had to borrow since then.

Mr RUNDLE - The Premier whispers something out of the corner of his mouth but it is a convenient statistic that I have never heard him mention. The fact is that these actions were taken because they -

Mr Jim Bacon - You're going to have a go at me about this.

Mr Best - This is a big sinking missile.

Mr RUNDLE - were necessary and in fact the father of redundancy programs in Tasmania was the Labor Premier, Michael Field. You can argue whether it was right or whether it was wrong but I do not think you can argue about the economic reality. The economic reality is that Mr Bacon's Budget now is about $120 million to $130 million better off per annum than it was in 1989 or 1990. So I would submit that action had to be taken. Michael Field was right, the Groom Government was right to continue that and we were right to continue it as well so that, delivered up for the new millennium, was at least a sustainable outcome. So history will endorse what I am saying here and it was not unique to Tasmania.

Often, as you go around this State and you see what has happened, not just in our public sector but in the factories that I visited over a period of probably 20 or 30 years in some cases but in politics, say, in the last fourteen years that I have been a member here when I first began work in Burnie in 1956, the Pulp - as it was called in those days - employed about 3 000 people. If you were to go down there now and have a head count you would find that you would be lucky to find 600 or 700 people on the payroll of that company.

If you take EZ Rosebery in the same period you find that EZ and Mount Lyell employed 3 000 or 4 000, in fact Mount Lyell at various times I suspect employed closer to 4 000 or 5 000. Rosebery probably 25 to 30 years ago had close to 3 000 - go through there now and you will be lucky to find 200 or 300. I am not sure what the employment is at Mount Lyell at Queenstown but I suspect 300 or 400 and some ripple-on jobs; I suspect at Rosebery perhaps 300 to 350 and some flow-on jobs from those operations. So basically I do not think anyone could argue that governments here or anywhere else could have simply carried on as though there were no imperatives and swum against the tide and taken no action.

There are a number of points that I would like to make and I have them listed here on my piece of paper. The public service - its very name indicates exactly what its historical purpose was and that was to provide service to the public and those people who worked in the public service were public servants, servants of the public delivering service to the public.

I think my colleague, Mr Groom, made a point when he spoke earlier today that while this legislation is about the State Service provisions, in fact it ought not to forget and overlook the fact that the whole purpose of the Tasmanian State Service is to deliver to the people of Tasmania public service in all its many forms and so one should never forget that. Public service means delivering services, whether they are a parks ranger living in a remote part of Tasmania to a first-year clerk in Treasury or some other department, the roles are very diverse by their nature but it is at the end of the day delivering those services to the people for the benefit of the people and the State in all its manifestations.

I believe it was important - and I am not sure what has happened in relation to this matter that I am going to raise but I believe it was important three and a half years ago when we introduced service charters into all the departments and agencies. Those service charters were signed off by the head of agency who gave a commitment to the various planks of those charters and they included things such as the turnaround on simple things like correspondence, that within receipt of a letter that was not overly complicated the public should reasonably be able to expect a response within a period of time, that information sought by the public should have a definite time span on how long that information should remain unanswered, and so it went on with a whole plethora of commitments given by the head of agency on behalf of those departments to the public of Tasmania.

I do not know whether they are still in existence or not or if they have been changed or what the position is but I think that they are a very worthy commitment by the agencies themselves and I would be disappointed if in fact they have disappeared into the ether. It is a common thing now and in the private sector, in order to measure and benchmark performance of companies, they are very keen to give and to demonstrate a service charter. For instance electricity entities, including I think our own Aurora, will undertake to reimburse a customer for a certain event that happens if it can be demonstrated that that event is in fact the fault of the company. It is not just here but electricity companies throughout Australia now have a charter which has a scale of compensation that they are prepared to pay - for example, Telstra - and many would argue whether they are up to speed or not, particularly in rural Australia which is a debate at the moment in terms of the privatisation of the second tranche of Telstra. But Telstra, I am sure, have commitments on the time for connections of telephones and this sort of thing, and so too would other companies operating in the telecommunications industry. So too I believe it is proper and right that the public sector should be benchmarked, that they should have service charters and that they should stand by them and be prepared to front up when they simply fail the Tasmanian public.

There are many ways, I think, that the public sector can be creative. One of the things that the Americans do is to have a public sector exchange where senior public servants each year will go off into the private sector maybe for one or two years, and private sector executives will move into the public sector for one or two years, so that you have that crosspollination, and I think that while some of this happens I think it is more likely to occur with private sector people being employed in the public service, as they may or may not apply for senior positions in the public service. It does not have to be senior positions even, but some of the heads of agencies have had experience in the private sector, some not, but I believe that to try to use our public sector more creatively and to crosspollinate it with industry, with the university, with a range of other academic institutions, would in fact be quite an enlightened way to travel and maybe in a limited way this does happen.

I think the graduate recruitment program that is in place in some agencies - Treasury have a graduate recruitment program, and I used to meet with -

Mr Jim Bacon - We have a service-wide one.

Mr RUNDLE - Yes, and annually I used to have lunch with the latest intake of Treasury graduates who basically had Bachelors of Economics or Commerce degrees, and they were some of the bright young academics in this State who were nurtured by Treasury, and later on I am sure will be providing advice as senior members of the public sector to governments and treasurers on economic matters, and that is good. What we want to do is to try to keep as many of these people in the State as we can. I know that the Department of State Development has this group called CRISP, which also is a graduate program, and I do not know what they are doing of late, but the concept is sound. What is actually coming out of that group I am not sure, because I do not believe I have seen any of their work, but obviously to keep those talented young people in the State is important to us, and all the public sector policy that exists on this now is obviously to be supported and beneficial to the objectives of keeping intellectual capital in Tasmania.

The delivery of services from the public sector to the people of Tasmania in the most efficient way is important, but there are now so many avenues opening up where in fact we can work smarter and we are working smarter, so the public sector employees are public servants. They serve the public. How do they do that? By being efficient, by not charging too much, by getting the information to them quickly. That is why things like the LIST program, thought to be probably the best Land Information System, is leading edge in Australia if not leading edge internationally. Some people have said to me that the LIST concept is in fact leading edge internationally, and I note that the Government is now going to try to market that intellectual capital, which once again I think is a very sound thing to be doing. So with LIST we are able to deliver to a whole range of people: the legal profession, surveyors, people involved in safety and fire prevention - a whole range of users can in fact at the press of a key access the LIST information system and get instantly a whole range of information, even to where there might be a fire hydrant in a street, where you can find the services on an individual block of land, where you can find the most recent sale price of land by suburb, by street almost, and so that is obviously a highly desirable development.

Dare I say that Service Tasmania is another efficient way of delivering one-stop-shop service to the people of Tasmania, particularly in those less populated areas where we have a community that would normally not have access to the plethora of departments that exist, and once probably existed to some extent even in more remote communities, but because of economic imperatives no longer do, then Service Tasmania not only had the ability but actually provided all of those services in those areas, and I talk now of Queenstown, Smithton and other areas. Scottsdale, I believe, has a Service Tasmania shop - George Town.

So that is simply an example of the public sector having long ago thrown away the quill pen and the quaintly embossed wax seal on the back of the envelope to the information technology revolution, and that is simply getting the best out of our people. It is probably one of the reasons why we are able to operate with perhaps the same efficiency, maybe even more efficiency - and I do not know whether the public sector unions or the Government itself has investigated this to find out what they believe has happened to the delivery of services in Tasmania in the last five years, whether we are delivering at a comparable rate to the late 1980s or whether we are actually delivering services quicker, smarter and most cost effective with 20 per cent fewer employees. I suspect an objective analysis will show that that is probably the case. How can you do it? Because we are using these devices: modern communications, the Internet, one-stop shops, electronic transactions with a financial reward for Tasmanians who want to use those devices. What has actually happened is that the public service, despite having been downsized, has actually increased its productivity enormously, as indeed has the private sector, so they are indistinguishable. The public sector has to be as efficient as the private sector and there is no reason why it cannot be. Although it is often criticised for not being as effective and as efficient as the private se ctor, I would say that if you analyse the public service around Australia in the last ten years you will find that they have certainly moved from a jog to a run.

I have already asked about the current numbers of public servants employed in Tasmania at this time; none of us really know that. We do not know how many people we are actually talking about but every one of them will be affected by this legislation - every single one of them. In recent years there have been phenomena called government business enterprises, and initially when those government business enterprises were established the public sector unions were very nervous about the status of those employees who were going across to an enterprise. Some government enterprises have moved even further and gone to being corporatised and the problem there was that the public sector unions did not want any diminution of their entitlements and protection under the State Service Act.

There were transition provisions put in place so that some of those employees were protected in that transitional phase, but I suspect the position now is that with the replacement of people, the retirement of people - most of those GBE people, many of them, and certainly in the corporatised entities will be on workplace agreements, they will be on individual contracts. So the nature of the public service in Tasmania has changed so that the core of the State Service which are government departments, agencies will be operating under this act but a group of people who once ten or fifteen years ago were part of the State Service are now appendages, if you like, involved in government business enterprises and government corporations.

I understand when this bill was being constructed the initial thrust of the Government was in fact to move into the area of contractual arrangements between the Government and State Service employees. That, after discussion with the unions, I think was eliminated from this act and so that would have been a reasonably radical move, I suppose, for a Labor government. To simply move down that path in relation to all of the State Service employees would have been fairly radical and maybe courageous, as a certain person would be inclined to say, but anyway, we do not find that here. One of the reasons why security of tenure was 30, 40 or 50 years ago a trade-off for generally lower wages in the public sector was security was traded off for perhaps less generous salaries.

I think we could say now that the public sector in Tasmania and in Australia generally does not lag behind the private sector - I think we would have some heads of agencies disputing that and saying, 'We don't get bonuses and we don't get share issues and we don't get this or that' but, generally speaking, I think the public sector now is more comparable with the private sector than it has been in years gone by. One of the reasons that public servants had security of tenure and one of the reasons that there was a fairly convoluted process in place, as indeed there would be now for the dismissal of a public servant under codes of conduct and offences and various things, was to protect the independence of the public servants so that governments could not politicise the public service; so that governments could not intimidate individual people working in the public service; so that it was at arm's length from the Government of the day in relation to the termination of the services of people working for the Government.

One could see valid reason for that because the arm's length and independence of the public service is important because once you move down the path of a partisan public service then you simply have the American system where when governments change so do huge slices of the public sector. It is the changing of the guard. That happens to some extent in ministerial offices, yes, because that is a different kettle of fish, although there are many public servants that I can think of who have worked for successive governments, Labor and Liberal - some of them are working in ministerial offices, some of them in senior positions - who in fact worked for Liberal governments; some of those who worked for the Groom Government, the Rundle Government were public servants in the Field years and even in the Holgate and Lowe years.

Basically all that demonstrates is that they are professional, they are capable of working professionally with governments of all persuasions, giving loyalty and ensuring that they deliver proper advice, that they respect confidences and that they simply are what you might call arche-type public servants.

One of the interesting things is that we work smarter and as modern communications and various devices become more sophisticated there is less and less reason why the public service or even people working for corporations have to be located at head office, as it were, in a corporate sense, or have to be located at head office in a governmental sense. There is no reason at all why any government that is serious about it cannot seriously address the question of decentralisation of the public service where the synergies are right, where the empathy with the region of Tasmania fits, that with modern communications there is no reason at all why people cannot work in remoter parts of this State as efficiently as if they were actually working at head office in Hobart or wherever head office might be.

So the Premier has from time to time indicated that he would look at diversifying and relocating some sectors of the public service. I believe that that is entirely possible; it can be done without any loss of efficiency, albeit there are some difficulties with that because people do not like moving and if they are established and have kids at school it is a problem for them. But if they were working with the public sector this would in many cases be part of their contractual arrangements that they are prepared to be flexible in terms of their location.

Given that it is not an easy thing to do because there will be resistance from departments, from employees, there is no technical reason in my view why a government that is determined simply cannot make decisions. There is no reason why the Department of Primary Industries people cannot be employed in most regions of the State, perhaps with the exception of the west coast. But certainly the rural sector is strong in most regions, the empathy is there and the rationale in it is quite sensible. The mining industry is an example and it is often quoted, 'Why couldn't a large slice of what was the old Mines department be located on the north-west coast?' When you think about it there is no valid reason in terms of logic why that could not happen although I have no doubt there would be resistance to it taking place from some quarters.
We are here, we can do it, we press a button and you are tapped into all of the electronic data that exists at head office. You can pull out information in seconds; you can transmit an email in seconds or milliseconds. The phone is not even a necessity with some of those other devices at their fingertips. So I would simply say to the Government that they should not overlook this. And with some parts of Tasmania needing a bit of assistance from the Government in ways that it can help this is one way that I believe is sensible, because if you put some middle-ranking public servants into a community - ten, twenty, thirty of them - they have the ability to make quite an economic impact but also to provide some intellectual grunt within those communities.

If Tasmania suffered a lot in the past 25 years it is on two fronts: one is economic, one is intellectual. The withdrawal of head offices from Tasmania by mainland companies has removed middle-ranking and senior-ranking executives from this State - and the most recent one I can think of is at Boyer where prior to the takeover there the previous company moved senior and middle management out of Boyer to Sydney. That is an economic loss to that community but the intellectual loss of those people in the community is also underrated.

Mrs NAPIER (Bass - Leader of the Opposition) - I welcome the fact that the State Government has introduced this State Service Bill and we support it. We note that if we look at the bill as it is presented before the House as compared to the original bill that was being consulted with unions a number of changes have been made, so that regarding a lot of the points of concern that have been coming to us we think the Government was wise to take those on board, particularly as they related to concerns about the fact that the word 'continuing' was going to be used instead of the word 'permanent', the concerns that they had about automatic right to review and access to the commissioner. Personally I think they may well have been just as advantaged, to be able to go from the review process within a department to the Industrial Relations Commission, but it was the view of the unions that they believe they would prefer to have access to the commission, so I note that the Government has actually done that. I know the re was also some concern in relation to the fact that the bill allowed for people to be appointed to level and not to position.

During the debate on the clauses, of course, we will be able to have a look at that in more detail, but I know the concern was that people could be moved from one position to another without necessarily reference to the fact that they had been appointed as a cleaner or a cook or a driver or whatever it might have been. And I note within the bill that it says that they can still be transferred within that level without salary decrement, but that due consideration needs to be given to their skills and abilities. I trust that does give sufficient flexibility to be able to avoid the very tight and narrow definitions that can sometimes otherwise be an impediment, both to the employee, most importantly, as much as to the employer in making sure that people's skills and talents are being used to the maximum, that people have interesting and useful work to do, but that this is not restricted in terms of the time it takes to be able to move from one position to another. But I know there was some concern about what that actually meant. That had been raised with us in a variety of contexts, and I know the shadow minister had many a phone call and many a person who had come to them raising those issues, and I think from that point of view the State Government seems to have taken on board some of those points of concern.
If we consider this bill in the year 2000 is a rewrite of the Tasmanian State Service Act of 1984 and that really this process of consultation and review has been occurring since 1997, the bill actually has not changed a lot that I could see. Yes, there have been some changes - there is only one commissioner, not two - but it did not seem to have changed all that much, although I must say it is a more user-friendly bill in terms of being able to read it, and I congratulate the officers who were involved in doing that.

The main context in which I had had an opportunity to be cognisant of the review that was occurring - was it the Rose Review or something like that? - was in the context of making temporary employees permanent. When I was Education minister we had gone some way to decrease the number of temporary teachers and increase the number of permanents, and then we introduced a new policy that tried to accede to the principals' and local schools' concern that one of the consequences of that was quite often they could not keep the really good teacher that they had who might happen to be temporary. They could not be made permanent, but they wanted to keep that teacher there because they were the right person for the job. So in order to accede to that concern to give that temporary teacher more guarantee, if you like, of being able to stay in whether it was George Town or Dover or wherever the appointment might be that the principal was keen to keep them there, rather than having a permanent person slip in and take their job because they happened to be permanent, we introduced the policy of the principal basically having a say over a certain percentage of their staffing. So if they wanted to keep that temporary person there they could. We were even looking potentially at moving up to some 15 per cent or something like that of staffing that a principal could have some say on. Of course I was not told at the time that the consequence of that policy, even though the communities wanted it and the principals wanted it, was that it would actually blow out the temporary teachers list, and it did, and that was of some embarrassment to me when I saw that was the consequence of it.

But I think what it indicates is that, as we look at this argument about trying to find a mechanism for providing public servants with guaranteed employment as much as you can, it is a matter of not only looking at the fact that they have a permanent job no matter where they live in the State, but also that you take into account the place where they are most productive and would enjoy to be so. One of the areas that I was conscious of was that as far as I was concerned in relation to the cleaners issue, in relation to all appointments within the Education department in particular, eventually people would become industrially permanent if they had had more than one year's appointment at a particular level.

So from my point of view I saw that industrially those people were permanent, and in that sense they at least had that guarantee. I was really waiting for the new State Service Act to clarify that, to at least indicate where we were going as a State, as a government, and where we are going to in the State Service to try to give some better permanency, some better security to a person whether it was security that you could use to talk to your bank manager or to your partner or just in terms of the confidence you had about where life was leading you to and I endorse the point that was made by the previous speaker.

When we look at parity between the private sector and the public sector, one of the reasons why permanency has always been valued so highly in the public service is, yes, to recognise that it probably does not match the private sector out there, although it was interesting that the independent school sector said that they were only marginally ahead on teachers salaries at the moment, although that will be interesting to watch when we see that - in Victoria, I note, they have gone for a 9 per cent increase and that might well cause that particular issue to move on, but also to acknowledge that it is really important for, and I strongly believe, the public service should be seen to be apolitical. It should be seen to be independent, capable of working with whichever government it might be. The issue really is the kind of leadership, the goals, the direction that governments might provide in terms of what their policies are and then our good public service will without judgment upon that try to drive that policy as might be best laid out by the Government.

In relation to the issue of heads of agencies and more senior positions, I think the Government is wise to leave this out to that extent, outside of the province of the Industrial Commission. That is an area where quite often governments and ministers have a view about the extent to which they may be comfortable with a particular head of department or otherwise and I think some flexibility is useful and quite realistic, as much as you might expect to have operating in the private sector. I think that is an important aspect and one of the reasons why at SES level of course there is, and necessarily, a much better level of remuneration and perceived independence but it also acknowledges that security relates to the public service below that point, but probably we need that degree of flexibility beyond that at least if that role, that person and their position is no longer required.

Having said that, I think this bill certainly makes some improvements although modestly so and it seems to be at least more consistent with the way in which the industrial relations area is moving in terms of industrial permanency and I note that basically the bill allows for people to be appointed either as a permanent employee or for a fixed term or fixed task, and I think that is appropriately so.

The question I would ask, I suppose, given that this bill relates to education, TAFE in particular, I guess, nursing and so on does this make any change - and I do not think it does - but does this make any change to the person who, for example, is given fixed-term employment over consecutive years? That was the problem that we were having with temporary employment. We inherited the situation and we had not completed resolving the circumstances that you run into in health and education, in particular, where you might have someone who has been a temporary employee for ten, fifteen, twenty years.

As I said, as far as I can see they are industrially permanent, but I would ask for an interpretation from the minister in that area and if, for example, you have someone who for the last ten years in the first semester of each year has been teaching a particular course - I mean, does that entitle them to any relative permanence over time or is that covered by just tightening that aspect of employment to be solely related to a fixed-term employment position?

I think this bill is a really important bill that we obviously want to at least spend a little bit of time looking at in detail as we go through because frankly a government is only as good as its public service and we have a very capable public service here within this State and quite often when the public service is criticised, it is because the Government has not given them sufficient guidance and direction. They have not been clear about what their policies are, what the outcomes of things that they wish to try to achieve are, because quite often if you give the public service an indication of what the outcomes are that you wish to achieve, they will very effectively and efficiently find the best mechanism by which you can try to achieve that.

In doing that, I say that taking into account some of my experience when I was a minister and in education, for example, I found that those working in education were particularly effective and I found very positive in grasping new directions, new programs that you wanted to implement, when you identified the kind of outcomes that you wanted to have assessed as to whether that would succeed or not, when you asked them to be quite frank in the extent to which a program was going to be limited by resources or limited by time frames.

One example of that was, I still firmly believe that the investment that we made in the 'talented programs' within schools that we piloted that ran very successfully and continue to run, I note, even though the funding has been withdrawn by the State Government, in Rosny College in relation to the dramatic arts. I remember East Ulverstone Primary School ran some really exciting programs in information technology. Summerdale received some funding to run some specialist programs in terms of what schools could do with a small amount of additional funding, what best-practice models they could identify that would enable talented children who are within our schools, who quite often underachieve because they are bored or because the programs are just not provided for them to be able to achieve the excellence that they are quite capable of achieving. By providing that funding and providing that focus of saying that, 'Yes, we as a government value this', I found that Education were very good at finding the best way to gain best value out of that money, to report on that and of course, quite often, a lot of people who were not successful in getting that funding said, 'We'll do that anyhow. We'll monitor what the best-practice programs are and move from there.'

The partnership agreements that were developed in schools were very much about us saying, 'I know there are some who would argue that all aspects of education are equally important. I have to say to you, from our point of view, that we think the basics are the number one priority.' Yes, you need a well-grounded education but literacy, appropriate behaviour, information technology, numeracy and looking after yourself and your physical abilities and your view of self are absolute and fundamental priorities. That was reflected in many of those partnership agreements and in talking to people. When I talk to people I say, 'Well, did it make any difference? Was it worth doing that?' People said 'yes' because finally we were actually continuing to assess and without threat what we were good at, where we needed to improve. We actually found that most of us underestimated what improvements and what outcomes we were capable of achieving.

That means that you have a very good public service out there. If you indicate what you believe are the priorities, the outcomes, the goals, the directions that you, as representatives of the Tasmanian people have identified as being important, I found that officers were enthusiastic. They put in beyond the hours that we actually paid them for to be able to pursue those directions. It was usually only in instances where you may have found that you did not achieve that you probably had not been all that explicit. The program had just run along and everyone had just ticked it along but it had not really been developed with any great fervour. From that point of view, I think getting this right in providing a secure setting with justice, with equity, with opportunity built into being able to work in the State Service Act, I trust that this bill will allow us to do it.
Other members have talked about things like Service Tasmania, LIST - that some of those programs that have been achieved were but dreams some eighteen months, two years before those programs were talked about. There were some exciting times when you would talk with people about what you would like to try to be able to achieve and they would look at you as if to say, 'Are you really ready tackle that much change?' and you would say, 'Yes, let's do it. Let's try it'.

I have great confidence in the State Service and their ability to be able to do that, if they are given the opportunity; if they are provided with sufficient freedom to be able to find the most constructive ways for delivering outcomes. I am pleased to see a reference to outcome-focused work in the bill, I think that is really important; I fully support that because the State Service consists of trained professionals. They have wonderful skills and we should not be wrapping them up in straitjackets as to precisely how they need to achieve that. What really counts is the outcomes and the goals for which we trust we will be able to work together.

One of the aspects of the bill that I would just make comment on is in relation to the Code of Conduct that is included beyond the State Service Principles. I indicated that in the State Service Principles I am pleased to see that we have used the Commonwealth definition of merit - I think that is what it is. I think that appears to be a better definition of merit, and again, I notice under (2)(c) there is a reference to the ability of people to get things done. I think that is really important. I really worry sometimes when senior level appointments are made, and I am referring sometimes to the minister for PIWE who is in the House at the moment, that quite often appointments are made on the basis of paper. They are not necessarily the people who can achieve the best outcomes related to the duties that they have, and I just think that to balance the qualifications or otherwise that a person has with the demonstrated ability to get things done is important. Quite frankly, the extent to which interstate people are being appointed within PIWE has really worried me. I think there are talented, capable Tasmanians who are more practically oriented than some of the interstate appointments that have been made, particularly in the area of Parks, Land Management and those kinds of areas, and I think that might be asso ciated with the extent to which the environmentalist movement has basically either taken you over, Minister, or tied you up in knots, which causes you to review situations when in fact you cannot do something in terms of getting the most practically oriented people. So I think from that point of view, I really welcome those kinds of practical aspects that are in there.

Mr Llewellyn - Are you talking about me? I thought you were sort of prattling on like you usually do.

Mrs NAPIER - You do not listen. That is very rude. But if you think appointing people who can get things done does not count, that actually explains a lot about why people have a fairly low opinion of your ability to control your department and to get things done. But also if you do not believe that your department should be outcome focused then, Minister, you should not be there.

Mr Llewellyn - I do.

Mrs NAPIER - Well, that is exactly what I was talking about.

The point that I was talking about was the State Service Code of Conduct. This is an issue we have been waiting for some time for the minister to act upon. We welcome it, although the point has been made and I think it has been foreshadowed that under clause 11 we would be bringing forward an amendment that follows up on 11(1) in terms of making sure that an employee must not make improper use of information or take advantage of the position they are in, but also to make sure that they must declare gifts as prescribed by the regulations. I think the point has already been made by the shadow minister about the register of pecuniary interest. I would have thought for all positions SES and above, certainly for the senior positions, there would be use of a pecuniary interest. Presumably that should be at least available to heads of department. There is an argument for the very senior position, heads of department position or even the top couple of positions, that that ought to be publicly available as much as it needs to be and necessarily be made available as far as parliamentarians are concerned. It is public dollars that we are talking about; it is the public interest that we are talking about.

I think as we go through these bills we would encourage the Government to give serious consideration as to whether there ought to be, as a matter of course, a register of pecuniary interests, and that in fact that should be publicly reviewable, and the question is: to which level we take that down to. Is it all ES, SES or to which level do we take that? My thought is probably all SES, given the importance and the significance of many of the decisions that they are making.

I note with interest in relation to the question of the number of government departments that are listed here and so on, I am just wondering in relation to the transfer provisions that are provided within this bill whether the Government could share with us the progress they have made, or lack of progress that you might have made, in relation to transferring either government departments or components of government departments to the north and north-west of the State. There was many an editorial, Premier, that welcomed your announcement that you were going to move on this. Many an editorial in fact welcomed the announcements by Dr Patmore that he was going to do this, but of course it is fairly hard to identify more than one or two people who might have moved north as a consequence of that fanfare of him moving his department, in effect, to the north. It really has not happened.

But I would also have to say that particularly in that area of the north-west coast that is experiencing 11.3 per cent or thereabouts unemployment, particularly in the Burnie area, they are particularly conscious of the promise that they consider you have made, Premier, to transfer government departments north. In the most recent discussions we had with them, of course, the discussions were most logically in relation to Mines, sections of PIWE, although I thought we probably came up with a solution that might help the minister in relation to certain sections of the Environment and Land Management areas. It seemed to me that, given the large proportion of the lands and reserves that we are responsible for looking after are predominantly within the west coast, the north-west, the north-east, why would you not transfer senior components of that department? It seems quite logical to me and it may well - having this idea is coming on board - be a very good way to transfer members there, but it also helps achieve this better affinity between local users and the departments and we might get more sensitive management.

Mr Llewellyn - We have most of it up there now.

Mrs NAPIER - No, we have not - nowhere near that number. You just got rid of the northern regional manager and the southern one as well. You have them all going into the black rat -

Mr Llewellyn - The what?

Mrs NAPIER - and good on the black rat for the numbers that he is going to be trying to deal with but I think you have -

Mr Llewellyn - The who? What are you talking about?

Mrs NAPIER - caused an absolute bottleneck and no wonder you are not getting any movement on the issues that the public wants decisions made on up there. But that is an issue I would appreciate your providing us with an update in terms of your progress in relation to the transferring of government departments.

The other question I would raise is in relation to - and probably it comes up in the section of 'Transfer Terms and Conditions' when I was looking at clause 42, in terms of transfers between agencies and so on, and you would be aware, Premier, given that you are in the House, that we raised some real concerns about what was happening in relation to one of the very effective and successful people who are operating at level 12 and that is the current head of the Office of Status of Women, Ms Little. We have not received an update from you as to which position she might be appointed to. This side of the House would regard it as being an absolute insult to this very good public servant if, in fact, she was dropped from SES level - quite inappropriate. Not only has she successfully guided a great deal of reform through the public service in relation to tackling issues associated with gender and equity but also I have found her to be one of the more effective operators in terms of keeping their minister out of trouble.

If that is one of the characteristics of a really good person operating at SES level, quite frankly, putting politics aside, if you want a good operator - and you have a very good operator there at the moment - who, in my understanding, is on 4 December, from my recollection - because we have had many people supportive of this person ringing us up really concerned that as far as they are concerned it is an insult to a senior female member of the public service who has delivered good and faithful service, many a good reform - she wore the brunt when we pursued the practice of having annual budget reports from departments. I was wondering where they had gone because it was a mechanism that we introduced, from recollection - I do not think it was operating under - in fact, I think it was under Peter Hodgman that they started - but these particular mechanisms were very good ways of getting all departments to be conscious and to report on gender equity issues. It drove an incredible number of reforms through the public service - many in the public service did not like it - but it seemed to me that was the significance of having someone at the SES level driving that reform agenda right across the public service. I thought that was a very important role that was being played.

I am sad that the Premier decided not to continue with that annual budget process. It was probably as a suggestion from the other government department heads, I would imagine, who regard it as a bit of a nuisance activity but it was stopped when your Government took over -

Mr Jim Bacon - It is in the report that was tabled a fortnight ago.

Mrs NAPIER - This is the annual budget report from all departments across the area.

Mr Jim Bacon - The Commission of Public Employment report on these matters.

Mrs NAPIER - Pardon?

Mr Jim Bacon - On all those matters, reports were -

Mrs NAPIER - I will look with interest. I must admit I had not noted that that report had been tabled. I thought the annual report across departments on women and gender issues had ceased but that is interesting.

But I think that was an important reform as much as other reforms that have been driven in terms of women in employment, safety within the environment and so on. But when one looks at an instance where someone is dropped from a position where for some - what ten years? - they had been at a particular SES level - it might not quite be ten years - then I would have thought, in an industrial sense, they would probably have as much argument for staying at that level, unless it can be demonstrated that they do not have the competence.

If your real agenda is that you are not going to increase the status of the Office of Aboriginal Affairs and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, then we probably see where you are coming from because of the relative inequity of the senior appointment in those offices - but this still does not mean to say I agree with it. I think those officers ought to be at senior level anyhow but we would ask for some clarification on that and we would welcome the emphasis under clause 48 that, where inability is demonstrated, training will be provided as one of the components of assuring someone of the opportunity for at least maintaining status.

Mr CHEEK (Denison) - I will just make a short contribution on this. I must say I am extremely disappointed the Premier has not asked me to take his place as guest speaker at the Moonah and Glenorchy Business Association annual meeting and dinner tonight where the Premier was unfortunately guest speaker. And I thought, as I am hoping to get a pair from Mr Ken Bacon to go there, he may have asked me to address the meeting. I would have been happy to read out his speech.

Mr Jim Bacon - There's no reason why we both can't go. If you haven't anything to say about it, sit down and we'll get on with it.

Mrs Napier - Oh no, you decided to -

Mr Jim Bacon - We might both end up out there.

Mr CHEEK - I might have amended it slightly, as I saw fit, but I would have been very happy to read his contribution to the people there. But you have Dr Crean so I will have to accept that you prefer the Treasurer to me. But really, it will be disappointing for the people out there, I suppose, not to have the Premier; they look forward to that. I know he goes out there every year. So it is disappointing that he has to be in the House and there is no need for it, as we all know. A decision was made and listening to the reasons for it, I have heard my colleagues say that it is rather demeaning to the State Service that this bill purports to support and to put down what we expect of them. And yet we are going to rush it through. And it is interesting to know that it is said that Ronnie Cornish did it, so we will do it too. That seems to be the mentality for poor old Ronnie; it is tit for tat, Ronnie did it, so it does not matter if it is right or wrong, we will do it as well. And that is pretty disappointing I think and I am sure if Ron Cornish had still been in Parliament we would not have been waiting three years for this legislation to come in. Ronnie, I am sure, would have had it through a lot quicker than this. He is the man, Mr Llewellyn, who recruited me to Parliament. He turns white when people suggest that to him these days, I think, but he is the man responsible for it. We have a lot in common, the same initials - RC.

Mr Jim Bacon - I must thank him.

Mr CHEEK - And I first met Ronnie on a cruise on the old Canberra liner to Japan and Hong Kong -

Mr Llewellyn - So he thought you'd make a good politician, Bob?

Mr CHEEK - and watching Ronnie operating on a cruise ship when he was single was a sight to behold, I can assure you.

Mr Llewellyn - Did he say 'You'd make a good politician, Bob'? 'You want to have a think about it' - did he say that?

Mr CHEEK - Did he say what?

Mr Llewellyn - 'You'd make a good politician, Bob. You want to have a think about it'.

Mr CHEEK - Well, I did run into him at a certain fitness club and we had a discussion about it and that was the catalyst for it, so Ronnie has had a lot to answer for, some may say.

Members laughing.

Mr CHEEK - But getting back to the point and I do want to be seen to be addressing the main issues in this bill but it is disappointing we have to be discussing this tonight. It is a very important bill and it is a pity that we have to say the main excuse, the mentality over there seems to be, well, Ronnie Cornish would have done this so we will do it too. So we are not out of that yet - we are not out the mentality of: because you did it, we will do it too. Hopefully one day we will grow up and be able to do that but I will not hold my breath.

For three years' work the bill, while it sets down the basics and you have to say that it is good to see that -

Mr Llewellyn - Not bad as bills go, I suppose.

Mr CHEEK - For three years' work, if it is three years in the making, you would have to say it is a little disappointing but what I find is in the bill -

Mr Jim Bacon - It should have been bigger.

Mr CHEEK - No, not bigger but -

Mr Llewellyn - Heavier?

Mr CHEEK - what I find disappointing is that public servants, and obviously what they do is serve the public, but there is really not much mention about any customer service charter or what they are supposed to be doing. It is very inward looking at just the public service but really, as the Premier knows, they are supposed to be serving the public and I think to talk about things like customer service and what they should be doing to serve the public would have been a step forward in the right direction too. I mean, I believe -

Mr Llewellyn - You don't know anything about the public service, though; you only know about small business - you've been a business man.

Mr CHEEK - Well, I have had to deal with a lot of public servants in my time - I have to say that, and some I have been most unimpressed with over the years. Although I must say, and I have said this, that in the State Service now there are some very good performers and they work very hard. I think their work ethic is terrific and certainly a lot better than private enterprise in many ways and I think -

Mr Llewellyn - Oh, this is a red letter day.

Mr Jim Bacon - It must be.

Mr CHEEK - there are some very good performers in the State Service, and I really mean that.

Mr Jim Bacon - Send an email to all public servants.

Mr CHEEK - And I have witnessed that there are also some bad ones but there are also some very good ones. But customer service is the thing and I have always said it should be like McDonald's, the old McDonald's promotion where if you do not serve the customer in a minute the customer receives a free Big Mac. I think you should bring that mentality to the public service.

Mr Rundle - Free Big Macs, I'm in favour of that.

Mr CHEEK - If they cannot deliver in a certain time -

Mr Jim Bacon - They don't get their Cabinet submission done.

Mr Rundle - I'm on a diet; I couldn't eat any.

Mr CHEEK - say seven days, fourteen days, thirty days, if they cannot deliver, maybe you should give whatever they are asking for free or -

Mr Jim Bacon - I wouldn't want to be paying your mob on productivity at the moment.

Mr CHEEK - or give them a bonus or do not charge them. But start thinking about the people out there, the Tasmanian people that they are serving -

Mr Jim Bacon - You'd be up for a few Big Macs on your performances after -

Mr CHEEK - instead of worrying so much about - to make sure that they are looked after. And I do say I am not trying to denigrate public servants in saying that because I do accept you do have to have guidelines and you have to have rules down there. But certainly I am disappointed that there is not more in there to really say what they should be doing for the people they serve, the public. And as far as performance indicators go and benchmarking, I do not know what the Premier has in mind there, whether he is going to introduce some sort of system there. I know he knows the TCCI have been pushing for that for some time. I think they have had it in their budget submission and whether they are going to put it in again this year - I think they had it in last year, whether he is going to do anything about that, I do not know. But I think it will be a very good idea so we can assess just how they are going. We can get up here and talk all we like about how they are doing a good job, and there are some good ones there and we reckon they are good. But really you do not know because there is nothing to compare them with both in other sectors and particularly in other States. That is what we need in there and I hope the Premier takes that on board and actually does something about it. Maybe he can give us an indication of whether he intends to do that because I think that would be very beneficial for Tasmania as a whole and also for the State Service. I am sure they would get a lot of pride out of it too, doing what they do well and being able to do it even better.

I do not intend to talk a long time on the bill. I have made the points I really wanted to make. I think most people have mentioned a pecuniary interest register, just about everybody anyway and I intend to agree with that. They do wield a lot of power, the heads of departments, the heads of agencies, and it is really ludicrous to suggest that opposition politicians should be putting everything on the public record when really our influence in making decisions is very small at this particular time. I mean, we really cannot influence anything at all. But heads of agencies certainly can and yet we have to go on the public record and they do not, and I think that is wrong. Certainly the seven heads should be there and I think it should be made public. I am sure they have nothing to hide but it should be out there. It is fair enough that government ministers and the Government should be on there and the Opposition hopefully will get back to government before too long. But certainly that is a good point that is being made by Mr Groom and Mrs Swan and others as well.

The question of gifts as well - I think there is no mention of gifts for public servants, I think the same thing applies there. Parliamentarians who have a limit of $200 on gifts - certainly for the Opposition it is small fry. You have to have rules and guidelines but the public servants can accept heaps of gold, gold doubloons and pieces of eight and jewellery and other things.

Mr Llewellyn - Frankincense and myrrh.

Mr CHEEK - Frankincense and myrrh, yes. I think that should be the case also.

Mr Llewellyn - We're getting towards Christmas.

Mr CHEEK - I know the Premier wants to have an attempt to get to the Moonah and Glenorchy Business Association meeting and dinner to be guest speaker, so I will sit down now having made my contribution and made the points that I want to.

Mr JIM BACON (Denison - Premier) - I thank members for support of the legislation. I think every speaker said they support the legislation and I thank them for that. A number of issues have been raised principally by the opposition spokesperson, Mr Groom. A couple by other people were not covered by him, so I will try to answer those. But I will say at the outset a number of members opposite have made a point, and the last speaker did, about the fact that this debate has been brought on. In fact this has been going on as the member said for three years and it has been well known for many months. I announced in Parliament back in September that when we came back this would be done this session. There has been very widespread consultation. Some of the members have referred - I think the Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred to letters he had received and the member for Denison, Mr Groom, did for members from HACSU. We received all those letters too. That was around the time of the dispute over Royal Derwent and whether it is coincidence or not, they all dropped off when that dispute went to another stage of negotiation.

Mr Cheek - It's no excuse for doing this though. It's no excuse for doing what you're doing.

Mr JIM BACON - But no member opposite could seriously expect anyone to believe them if they said that this bill came as any surprise to them. They have known it was coming for many months if not years. They have known it was coming in this session since the start of the session. As I said previously in the second reading speech the bill, the State Service Bill 2000 has been on the web site for DPAC for some months. The consultation draft 3 was placed there on 31 July, version 17 on 8 September, version 19 on 25 October and the final draft which was very little different on 14 November. It is very interesting that the total number of downloads of the bill, the viewing of the bill pages on the Net through that web site, just up until the end of October totalled 2 032 which I would think would have to be the highest level of consultation which has ever been achieved in relation to public sector legislation.

Mr Cheek - It depends who got it.

Mr JIM BACON - If you put all those downloads and visits to their web site, together with the forums that were held throughout the public sector for employees, there have been many meetings, obviously there has been correspondence with some organisations, some people; there have been extensive discussions. It is not new. I would think the fact that either the CPSU, which is the union with by far the biggest number of members in the public service who would be covered by this, and the State Service, are not here, neither are any of the other unions. They all know that legislation is being debated today; we informed them that it would be on today. They have not chosen to be here, which I think indicates the high level of support for the legislation. There has been a great deal of consultation.

Turning to the issues that were raised by the member for Denison, Mr Groom, a number of the points that he made, and others did, in relation to the question of public service and giving a higher priority to public service is of course really covered in the principles, and if not in the principles, in the Code of Conduct that is contained in the legislation. These comments apply equally to the comments of the last speaker, Mr Cheek, about customer service. I think Mr Groom raised the question of 'courteous' being left out of the Commonwealth one, if it was transposed here. Courtesy, I think you said, was -
Mr Groom - Was in the Commonwealth one but not in this.

Mr JIM BACON - Yes, it is not here.

Mr Groom - A timely provision of service.

Mr JIM BACON - You also raised the question of confidentiality and privacy. The fact is yes, we have borrowed very heavily from the Commonwealth principles, they have been reworded to make it more practical but certainly the same intent is there as the Commonwealth model. I think you would find in any fair reading of (a) to (m) in the principles of the State Service all these matters are covered. They might not be covered in precisely the words that others might choose; they might not be covered high enough up in the list that some might think, but I would say if you look at the actual principles there, there is every reason for thinking that -

Mr Groom - Where's the timely responses to the community?

Mr JIM BACON - I would say it starts off in clause 7(1)(a), 'The State Service is apolitical' - which is separate - 'performing its functions in ... a professional manner' certainly would include that. 'The State Service is accountable for its actions', 'the State Service delivers services fairly and impartially to the community'.

Mr Cheek - It doesn't say 'quickly'.

Mr Groom - It doesn't say 'expeditiously, quickly or in a timely manner'. It does in respect to the advice given to the Government under (e): 'the State Service is responsive to the Government in providing honest, comprehensive, accurate and timely advice'. That's to the Government.

Mr JIM BACON - Well, very clearly being professional and providing services fairly and impartially to the community involves providing those services as soon as is possible. In any event, these are principles; they are not meant to be entirely prescriptive of everything that is done in the public service. They are principles and -

Mr Groom - Pretty basic stuff.

Mr JIM BACON - people have talked about customer service charters and all these sorts of things. There is no reason whatsoever that those sorts of devices cannot still be used. They are not negated in any way by the legislation; if anything they are encouraged by the legislation and the adoption of these principles.

Mr Cheek - They're a pretty low priority so they don't go in there.

Mr JIM BACON - No, that is just a silly thing to say.

Mr Cheek - That's true, it's not silly at all.

Mr Groom - I've got an amendment I'm going to move.

Mr JIM BACON - Oh, good. We may as well get on with this so we can get into it, seeing you obviously were not really interested in the response at all. You were busy drafting your amendments, so we will not bother any more about that, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr Cheek - Aren't we allowed to move amendments?

Mr JIM BACON - The next matter that was raised was about appeal rights and termination, and if there was a delay in the industrial commission hearing. It should be noted that termination only occurs after there has been independent investigation by the State Service Commissioner and review by the Industrial Commission after termination. So of course it is a nonsense to say that then they should be kept in employment if in fact there has been an independent review of the decision by the State Service Commissioner and that is exactly the same as all other employees. But the difference is that public sector employees get the opportunity for the decision to be reviewed, that is appealed, prior to the termination actually occurring. After the termination occurs of course all employees are in the position that if they are disputing their dismissal in an industrial tribunal, they do not get paid if the termination has actually taken effect. It may well be that they are subsequently paid retrospectively but that would be a very considerable advance on what the vast majority of people in the work force enjoy.

Mr Groom - So are you saying on that there is no difference between the current act and the bill in respect of the entitlements of the employees in that situation?

Mr JIM BACON - Yes, there is because the review comes in before they are terminated.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Premier, we are going into Committee and I ask the members to keep their questions until we do actually get into the Committee stage and then we will deal with them then.

Mr Groom - But the commissioner can't review terminations.

Mr JIM BACON - If we are going into Committee, we may as well do all the questions then.

Mr Groom - He can't review terminations.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - The Premier has the call.

Mr JIM BACON - Yes, he can or she can.

Mr Groom - An employee is not entitled to make an application through -

Mr JIM BACON - Conflict of interest was raised - that is clearly covered in the Code of Conduct under clause 9, subclause (8), 'An employee must disclose, and take reasonable steps to avoid, any conflict of interest in connection with the employee's State Service employment' which does cover that issue of -

Mr Groom - I didn't raise conflict of interest, I raised pecuniary interest, it's a different issue.

Mr Cheek - There is a difference.

Mr JIM BACON - And a pecuniary interest would certainly be covered by a conflict of interest, if a person has a pecuniary interest in a matter that they are providing advice on -

Mr Cheek - We are talking about a register of interests.

Mr JIM BACON - Well, now, the register is a separate thing.

Mr Groom - Well, that's what I raised.

Mr JIM BACON - There is no intention to establish a register for heads of agency or other public servants. There is nothing in the bill that would prevent such a register being established but it is not the intention of the Government at the moment to -

Mr Groom - Could you see some merit in the argument that if members of parliament have to declare -

Mr JIM BACON - I can see where the argument comes from and -

Mr Groom - And in some jurisdictions it's happening now with senior public servants.

Mr JIM BACON - I mean, clearly it is not the intention of the Government at the moment but there is no reason why this legislation would prevent one being introduced in the future.

You raised the questions of gifts which I thank you for raising - that is a relevant point, that will be covered in the commissioner's direction.

Maternity leave you raised and other members did - clearly that is an industrial matter, in fact a claim has been sent to me by the TTLC as well as some unions in the public sector, as with other matters to do with wages, conditions of employment. We have replied to that that, yes, we are prepared to meet with the unions about it but, because I also have a claim for the renewal of the State Services Wages Agreement, we have written back saying that we will discuss the question of paid maternity leave with them as part of the negotiations on the State Services Wages Agreement which has expired, so negotiations in fact are starting tomorrow.

So we are not far off making some progress with those claims; certainly we accept the points that are made about paid maternity leave. I do not frankly know that Tanzania has better conditions for women. It may do in the public service, though I would suspect they would call it the civil service and it would be more based on the British model than anything else; I might be quite wrong about that, I do not know an awful lot about Tanzania.

The 4 over 5: there is an application before the Tasmanian Industrial Commission. As you know, we really expanded the 4 over 5 to a much broader flexible leave program. I do not have up-to-date advice, though I could quickly get it, about how many employees have expressed interest around the place in different arrangements, but certainly that is a very flexible scheme which provides many opportunities for people in the public sector for different reasons to rearrange their working hours and spread it over different periods. But again it is a matter of working conditions and wages and conditions and would not be dealt with in the legislation.

In terms of the whistleblower legislation - well, not surprisingly, the point has been made that the whistleblower legislation, which the Government is intending to introduce, has not been introduced yet. I acknowledge that. There is a discussion paper which has been out and further legislation is being developed in Justice.

Just before I get to your points, Peg, the last point the Opposition spokesperson raised was the question of discussions with agencies and whether or not it was limited to heads of agency. It certainly was not. Corporate services and human resource forums were set up across agencies for consultation. I wrote to all employees in the State Service and - I know I have not seen many responses. That might be because they are all quite happy with it.

Mr Groom - There was a point made by a major union that there was a lack of effort with the great body of employees compared with heads of agency, senior people in the agency departments.

Mr JIM BACON - Well, we absolutely reject that. Frankly, I think some union officials have blamed us for the fact that they have not consulted with their members as they might have. For instance, I referred previously to the letters from the members of one union. There was a letter written to the editor of the Examiner by one of those people claiming that the bank manager was about to foreclose on his mortgage and kick him out of the house because of this legislation. Whatever the argument over whether 'continuing' employment was the right word or not or 'permanent', there is no question that any bank manager who sought advice on the matter would have been told that there was no change to the employee's status. In fact, one of the things that I am very proud of since we have been in government is the large number of people that I have converted from temporary employment in public sector to permanent because I have had a view for many years that this business where there are large numbers of people in the public service who were classed as temporary and yet some of them had ten, fifteen, twenty years' service was quite ridiculous. We have, I think, converted something like 1 700 or 1 800 employees since I have been Premier and I had to approve those.

The member for Denison, Ms Putt, welcomed the principles of 7(1)(g) and (c). You asked a question about particular employment groups. For instance, indigenous people, youth, women and so on. Yes. It is designed to be proactive in targeting employment groups. In fact, different groups are to really put into practice equity as well as diversity in the public service. The actual fact with the young people, in terms of young people, particularly since we instituted the service-wide graduate recruitment program, that has improved substantially. With women, I think you pointed out rightly that some agencies do not have as many women in senior positions as others do. The Department of Premier and Cabinet, obviously has a secretary and a deputy secretary and they are both women. A large number of members of the SES are in that agency. Obviously Health and some others - Education. Yes, it is true that in others there are very low numbers of women employed. In part that is because of previous attitudes to certain occupations.

Ms Putt - Sure.

Mr JIM BACON - For instance, at the afternoon tea I had yesterday for the graduate recruits, I was talking to a young woman there who is working in the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources in the roads section and she has done a degree in engineering and has a job there but she is one of a very small number, if not the only one. Certainly that young woman is the only one of the graduates who was working there. I guess over time that may change but I do agree with you. I think in some areas of the State Service, as in the workforce generally, it will be a very long time before we see practical change. You only have to look at the percentages by gender of people enrolling in particular university courses to see that they are not even. And if they are not even then, that is a requirement, or at least an indicator of an area where someone might want to work, then we have some way to go with gender roles and views of what people can and cannot do in the community before it can change. But certainly this is a substantial step forward in terms of recognising the need for encouraging diversity and protecting diversity in the State Service and certainly we will be targeting employment groups.

In relation to a number of points that different people have made about employment statistics, it was claimed by one member that we do not know how many people work in the State sector. I can say that certainly was the case a few years ago. It is only two weeks since the Commissioner for Public Employment tabled the annual report which does get very close and we believe each year is getting more accurate in relation to numbers -

Mr Cheek - How much has it gone up since you've been there?

Mr JIM BACON - Not very much. And that report also includes information about gender and young people and so on.

Mr Groom - What's the total head count?

Mr JIM BACON - In fact the total headcount now is 22 143. That is a full-time equivalent number of 19 092 and 0.43 of an FTE. But all of that information and a considerable amount of information is now available on the public sector and I must say that each year the statistics do get more accurate. We are more confident in saying that yes, this is the actual figure. The headcount, I think the former Premier would know, has come down over the last ten years from something like 28 000 or 29 000, if not more, at the start of the decade to 22 143. There has not been a big increase, Mr Cheek, since we have been in government; in fact we intend to keep a lid on public sector employment. We do not want -

Mr Groom - Has there been an increase?

Mr JIM BACON - There was a slight increase last year. I think it is pretty flat this year. Certainly we are keeping a lid on public sector recruitment. We do not want to go out and then have pressure put on our commitment to no forced redundancies and that is something which I will come back to in a moment, but I will just finish for Ms Putt's benefit.

The whistleblower protection for employees notifying a breach of the Code of Conduct: it should be noted that the code relates back to the principles which are very broad, therefore the whistleblower provisions offer wide protection and, as I said, public disclosure legislation is currently subject to public consultation through Justice. But we do not agree that notifying a breach of the Code of Conduct, if you look at the actual Code of Conduct, is in any way a dreadfully restricted right that is in the legislation or protection for them; in fact it does cover a wide range of actions and so on that people are protected in giving information. We do not agree, though, and I think this was the point you were making with your view that arguments about government policy should be carried on by public servants and State servants. That is a difference we have between us but it is our intention to introduce whistleblower legislation to protect employees for legitimate reasons where there is a real threat to public good, if you like, but not on just any general argument that might go on and we have all sorts of people from different agencies running out speaking to the press.

But that is the difference between us. In the meantime, we think this is adequate protection within the State Service. If you relate it back to the Code of Conduct, obviously when the other legislation is introduced that will protect employees in a more comprehensive fashion.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the other point I was going to come back to is this question of forced redundancies and yes, it is the Government's intention to maintain that commitment to no forced redundancies. We did it before the last election; we were not confident then that we could just give an open-ended commitment. We certainly gave it for the term of this Government. We now believe that we will be able to maintain that further and I think that is a very good thing. It has led to employees in the State Service having more confidence that their jobs were not about to be whipped out from under them. It has enabled us to, I think, improve the work of the State Service simply because people always perform better, in my opinion, when they are not under threat rather than when they are.

The odd thing really about Mr Hidding's contribution on this was he kept talking about an open-chequebook policy. That is exactly the sort of atmosphere that ended up existing in the public sector where anyone who may have wanted to resign, for whatever purpose - they might have had another job, they might have been moving interstate - they would not resign, they expected to get a redundancy payout. That had been going on. I think everyone knows anecdotally at least of cases where people took big redundancy packages, came back as consultants or went straight to another job - all sorts of things - and they were not genuine redundancy programs in many cases. There is no question that a culture had built up in the public sector that no-one left unless they got a redundancy payout. Well, that is not what redundancy payouts are for, Mr Deputy Speaker, and we do not intend to reintroduce that culture.

If people want to leave the job then they are entitled to do so. We do not want people to leave their job but if they do then we accept that and we say goodbye and off they go, but they do not get a redundancy payout because they want to leave the job.

What we are saying, the commitment on our side, is that we will not force them out of employment but in order to maintain that commitment there does have to be flexibility for redeployment. I think the point was made that there may have to be provision made for upskilling and so on; there is no question about that and no reluctance to admit it, but we do not think that widescale redundancy programs are the way to go, far better to keep people employed. Obviously there are changes in -

Mr Groom - Have you paid any redundancies? You must have paid redundancies but not on a forced basis.

Mr JIM BACON - On a forced basis?

Mr Groom - Have you paid any redundancy payments?

Mr JIM BACON - No, I do not think so.

Mr Groom - None at all?

Mr JIM BACON

- No. It is still possible for me to personally approve, as Premier, a
redundancy payout but we have not had to do that and we will not do it in the
foreseeable future because we think that it is possible to redeploy people.
One of the aspects that has not really been is the change - and I
think Mr Rundle spoke about this a bit - in the nature of work and of course
that is affecting the public sector the same as the private sector, so it is
not feasible, nor sensible, for anyone to think that they get a job in the
State Service and then they will just be there for the rest of their life doing
the same thing. Life is no longer like that and redeployment and working in
different agencies around the State Service will be more than norm than the
exception in the future, I believe. I think that actually makes for more
interesting jobs, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am sure the vast majority of people
will welcome it. But there is no as-of-right entitlement to a redundancy
payout just because you are leaving a job. If your job is being abolished yes,
there is an entitlement to it but we are not in the business of abolishing
jobs in the State Service.

With those comments and understanding that the Opposition wishes to move amendments, I would now move that you do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to further consider the bill.

Bill read the second time.