Fourteen public sector unions will step up their campaign this week to delay the start of the separate ACT public service on July 1.
Also this week, the Assembly’s committee on the new public service is continuing to scrutinise the ACT Government’s Public Sector Management Bill which is the ACT side of deal.
The following is a summary of the main sticking points over the ACT and complementary Federal legislation.
(SUBS please use appropriate bold):
Legislative: The Senate in principle demands that legislation not be introduced and passed in the same sitting. The office of the Minister, Gary Johns, however, says that the Federal legislation has been around since December last year and would have been introduced but for a request from affected parties to delay it. Johns’s office is seeking Democrat, Opposition and Green co-operation to meet the July 1 target.
The Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives on May 12. It should be debated and passed in the week beginning June 6, tabled in the Senate in the week beginning June 20 and passed before July 1.
The ACT legislation is before an Assembly committee this week. The chair of that committee, Trevor Kaine, says it is not enough time to look at the detail. The committee will have to report on June 14 (Budget day) and the Assembly sits on June 15 and 16 before the winter recess. It will have to be passed then if the July 1 deadline is to be met.
Mr Kaine’s committee goes out of existence once it reports. He argues for an on-going review of the legislation.
Political: The Assembly will consider whether to integrate the Statutory Appointments Bill which provides for key statutory appointments to be referred to an Assembly committee and the Assembly for ratification. The question is whether the Commissioner for Public Administration and the chief executives of departments are appointed by the Chief Minister alone or have to be referred to the Assembly.
Chief executives are permanent positions. The Independents and Liberals are uncomfortable with chief executives being both permanent and not subject to the Assembly. They do not mind the officers being appointed at ministerial whim provided they are not permanent and can be unappointed at the whim of a new minister.
The Opposition also wants the whistle-blower-protection provisions strengthened.
Industrial: Fourteen public-sector unions have unresolved issues.
They want to carry their recreation leave rather than being paid out.
They also want Section 50 transfers to continue. These are where a person moves to a position in another department at the same level if the receiving manager agrees. There are no appeals. The Commonwealth argues that it provides for back-door ways into its service and resulting accusations of mateship and subterfuge. Merit-only transfers would obviate this. And after a while the services will probably diverge making at-level transfers without a merit requirement impossible.
The unions want a breathing space to allow people to go back tot he Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth argues there has already been five years for people to make up their mind. The unions also want credit for post-July 1 ACT employees for their ACT service in the event of transfer to the Commonwealth a subsequent redundancy.
The unions are also concerned that the ACT Bill does not define the status of temporaries and casuals.
The unions have taken the issues to the Industrial Relations Commission, but as one Commonwealth source said: “”It would be a brave commissioner that made a detailed ruling in the face of two elected governments putting up legislation.”
The position of lawyers: The Director of Public Prosecutions and the head of the Legal Commission argue that their staff from time to time have to prosecute or sue members of the ACT Government Service or deal with them as witnesses and so on. Lawyers in this position have to act with a fearless independence not obtainable if they are subject to the strictures of public-sector employment rules.
The Bill gives them separate treatment in a lot of areas. The powers of the commissioner in a lot of employment matters are vested in the head of the two offices, but the two offices are not satisfied. The government argues that there are no consistent models in the rest of Australia and the model it is proposing is not substantially different from their present position in the Commonwealth service.
The lawyers say you cannot serve two masters.
The issue is one for the ACT and not the Commonwealth. Both Independent Michael Moore and Opposition legal spokesman Gary Humphries say they will fight for the lawyers’ independence on the floor of the Assembly if their concerns are not met earlier.