The ACT Government should not go ahead with the legislation for separate public service in its present form, an Assembly committee said yesterday.
It should also abandon its July 1 deadline and seek more consultation with those affected.
It said the witnesses it had heard made it clear that to go ahead would be “”ill-advised”.
The committee, in a majority report, said the Government should also drop its plans to embrace ACT Electricity and Water from the centralised service and should look at changes to increase the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Legal Aid Commission. It should also have separate whistle-blower legislation with wider coverage.
The majority were Liberal Trevor Kaine and Independent Helen Szuty. Labor’s Wayne Berry was in the minority.
It seems that the July 1 deadline will now not be met without major compromises from the Government.
Mr Berry said there was no reason to delay the Bill.
“”Witnesses offered no convincing evidence that there would be a discernible difference in the way the ACTEW would operate into the future,” he said. He was unconvinced of the need for separate whistle-blowing legislation because the Bill contained a comprehensive package to deal with it.
The majority recommended that ACTEW be exempted from the legislation pending further review.
The majority said both Northern Territory and South Australian officials had given evidence that they were moving to more decentralised systems with greater employment responsibility residing with chief executives.
It said a key problem was that the legislation was not available until April 21, 1994, limiting the inquiry to seven weeks.
On the Legal Aid Commission it said the actual and visible independence of the commission needed to be addressed.
The commission had said the Bill threatened its independence. Its lawyers had to act in their clients’ interests whereas under the Bill they would be public servants and bound to act in the Government’s interests and the commission took on cases that were contrary to the desires of the Government.
The DPP had argued for independence because it often had to prosecute government employees or undertake prosecutions which the government of the day might not like.
With the commission “”the committee considers that the need for actual and visible independence of the DPP needs to be balanced against the employment terms and conditions that the Government wishes to apply to all public employees”.
Budgetary constraints should not be allowed to restrict the independence of the DPP.
The committee said the Government should ensure that the new Act enabled the DPP to provide the level of service needed to protect the public interest and the independence of action of the DPP.
On ACTEW, the committee pointed out that both management and unions had to wanted to come under the new Act.
Present arrangements enabled ACTEW to operate flexibly.
The chairman of ACTEW, Peter Phillips, told the committee “”applying the public-sector management legislation to ACTEW would significantly reduce the flexibility needed by the organisation to compete in the energy industry thereby reducing the level of services being offered to the Canberra community.
The committee noted that the Council of Australian Governments agreement (which the ACT has signed) “”sets a framework for granting greater autonomy to energy and water utilities to improve efficiency” in the provision of water and electricity.
The committee also acknowledged concerns about the three-member Senior Executive Service staffing committee which all owed their positions to the Chief Minister any one member of which could veto an SES appointment.
The committee concluded, “”Taken collectively, the concerns expressed to the committee by all witnesses would suggest that the imposition of the Public Sector Management Bills in their present form would be ill-advised.”
Further consultation was needed with people and organisations involved, including the public.