PAPER Wednesday, 20 November 1996 ASSEMBLY 1347 Wednesday, 20 November 1996 676 senior executive pOSitions - 676 top bureaucrats. The ratios were clear. Upon looking at recent reports four years on we find a different situation. The government inherited a The SPEAKER (Hon. S. J. Plowman) took the chair lean senior executive service of 676 people for a at 10.06 a.m. and read the prayer. work force of 200000 people. From the 1996 annual report of the Office of the Public Service PAPER Commissioner which was tabled in this Parliament we can see the absolute hypocrisy of this Laid on table by Clerk: government in the way it has put on senior executive after senior executive. The situation now Intellectually Disabled Persons' Services Act 1986- for a work force that has been reduced in the public Report of the Community Visitors for the year 1995-96. sector-- UNIVERSITY ACTS The SPEAKER - Order! There is too much (AMENDMENT) BILL audible conversation in the chamber. I ask honourable members to keep their voices down; if Returned from Council with message relating to they wish to have a spirited discussion they can amendment. leave the chamber. Ordered to be considered later this day. Mr BRACKS - The 1996 report of the Office of the Public Service Commissioner indicates that the GRIEVANCES work force has been reduced by 50 000 people. Some 50 000 public servants in this state have been sacked, The SPEAKER - Order! The question is: removed or redeployed. There are 50 000 fewer people to manage, but more people are managing That grievances be noted. them. Senior executive service There are now 750 senior executives in this state managing a work force with 50 000 fewer employees Mr BRACKS (Williamstown) - I grieve for than when the government came to office. Talk Victorians who are suffering under high taxes and about hypocrisy! The government preaches restraint charges and reduced services while under this in services and increases taxes and charges, yet year government the number of top bureaucrats - senior after year puts on extra senior public servants. As I executives - is increasing year after year. The said, currently there are 750 budgeted senior salaries of senior executives have increased by 27 per positions. Of those, 681 have been filled compared cent in the past couple of years. What absolute with 676 when Labor was in office in 1992. Therefore hypocrisy on the part of this government, the we have more senior executives managing 50 000 Premier and the Treasurer, to increase the number of fewer employees. senior executives in this state year after year, then talk about reduced services in health and education The responses of the Premier and the Treasurer have and about school mergers. They talk about restraint been bizarre. When asked why more senior but they cannot restrain themselves. They continue executives are being employed to manage fewer to put on extra senior executives and to pay them people they effectively said, 'You have to pay a lot to more. get good people to manage the public sector'. The question was not directed only to the level of One has only to look at what this government salaries - although certainly they have gone up - inherited in 1992 in its senior executive service and it concerned the number of senior executives the its public service to see that trend. In 1992 the government has employed as managers and middle Premier received a report from Frank Honan, then managers of government departments. The Premier the chairman of the Public Service Board, for the said that to attract people you had to offer big year ended 30 June 1992. The report showed that salaries. when the government came to office in 1992 it inherited a public service that had, in the budget The Treasurer's response was limp. He has been sector, just over 200 000 public servants and grilled on the matter in hearings of the Public GRIEVANCES 1348 ASSEMBLY Wednesday, 20 November 1996 Accounts and Estimates Committee. He said it is not discretionary segment of remuneration (total of the a simple formula and you cannot have just a ratio of package less the employer cost of superannuation) is managers to employees. I wish he would look at used to estimate what might notionally be salary, the what happens in the private sector. As honourable increase was 27 per cent. members know, private enterprise is creating flatter structures. Power is being devolved downwards and There has been a 27 per cent increase in the salaries the senior executive and middle management layers paid by this government to its senior executives. I are not being maintained. The Treasurer talks about repeat: the government has put on more senior staff. outsourcing and privatising, but his department is It now has 720 - there were fewer when it came to the worst offender in appointing senior staff. His office - managing 50 000 fewer public servants. department has 113 senior executives who are paid What is more, it is paying them 27 per cent more. more than $100 000 a year. Although the Treasurer How can the Minister for Education talk about has been preaching restraint, since March this year efficiency when he is employing more top he has hired eight more senior people. Now his bureaucrats on bigger salaries and wasting about department has 116 senior executives being paid - $30 million of taxpayers' money? This minister tells according to various bands - either $100 000 or public servants they cannot have productivity rises $200 000 per annum. In several cases executives are and yet he gives his senior executives a 27 per cent paid up to $300 000 per annum. That shows the salary increase! That is hypocrisy of the first order. absolute hypocrisy of this government. He takes public servants, ordinary people who are doing their jobs, to the Magistrates Court to try to Mr Gude interjected. prevent them from getting proper productivity rises. Talk about double standards and hypocrisy! Mr BRACKS - I welcome a relevant interjection from the Minister for Education. The minister The opposition has received individual reports of referred to a mess and the need to reduce the public the double dipping that is occurring. The and budget sector. You have done it! government has yet to reveal what other double dipping is going on. I refer to two particular cases. Mr Gude interjected. The first is Max Moore-Wilton, commonly known as 'Max the axe', who works for the federal Mr BRACKS - The minister and his government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. have reduced the public sector by 50 000 public Although his role is to reduce the number of federal servants. If you are talking about restraint and not public servants, he also has a position with the state spending, why have you put on extra senior government. He is paid a $50 000 a year retainer just executives? to sit on the Victorian Public Transport Corporation board. Some of the top public servants in this Mr Gude - We are talking about efficiency. country are double dipping. Max Moore-Wilton is drawing a salary of more than $150 000 a year from Mr BRACKS - I welcome the interjection. If you the federal government and is sitting on the Public are talking about efficiency, how can it be efficient to Transport Corporation board with a retainer of hire more senior executives on higher salaries to $50 000. What is the role of Max the axe? His role is manage a reduced work force? Surely you are explicit: to reduce the number of federal public sending one message to one section of the public sector workers. By giving him a $50 000 ex gratia service and a different message to the other. payment the government is allowing him to double dip. Paragraph 49 of a report dated 2 August entitled Report on Salary and Allowances of Members of the The same happened with the former head of the Employee Relations Commission of Victoria and Premier's department, Mr Ken Baxter. It was prepared under the Judicial Remuneration Tribunal revealed by the Auditor-General that when he left Act contains the following statement: his position he received a very generous gift from the Premier. Such gifts are not given to ordinary The effect of the translation from SES - public servants who leave their jobs, of course. Ken Baxter was given an oil painting called Beach Day, the old system that was in place - painted in 1964 and purchased for $9500. to EO ranges was an effective increase in total cost of When he was asked about the gift, the Premier remuneration of approximately 23 per cent. If the explained that the chief executive went early and as GRIEVANCES Wednesday, 20 November 1996 ASSEMBLY 1349 a result forwent the two $7000 bonus payments he Much to my embarrassment, when I visited Darwin would have received. If he had stayed he would in 1992 I found out that Darwin had been obliterated have received about a quarter of a million dollars as twice during the past 50 years - once during the a bonus! Therefore he was given the painting as bombing and once during Cyclone Tracy. I made a compensation. But the Premier failed to say the few more inquiries and found out that the Japanese arrangement was that if Mr BIDder left prior to the attacked Darwin for some 21 months, conducting a end of his contract he was entitled to nothing. total of 62 raids from 19 February 1942 to According to the Auditor-General Mr Baxter 12 November 1943. I have spoken to a number of collected a painting worth $9500 that he was not other people about the raids.