Departmental Staff

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:25): Can the minister advise whether, when this flattening process took place and these new positions were created, those six positions were publicly advertised, allowing for a broad range of applicants across government, private and not-for-profit sectors to apply?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:26): Again, this is not something that I oversaw or had a particular role in. That's not the role of the minister, in terms of internal reorganisations.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: Jobs for the boys.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Hon. Michelle Lensink says, 'Jobs for the boys.' There are existing members of the executive. I understand the existing structure was flattened to have a more direct reporting structure to the chief executive.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Hon. Mr Ridgway seems to be implying that I should be running the employment practices for my agencies. That's what he's saying: that I should have a role in that. In fact, I take the view that that is not my role; that is the role of the chief executive. She reports to me and that is the way it should be.

I have said that I will go and seek information for him and show him how he has misconstrued the information that he has looked at and how we have actually managed to flatten the previous executive system to a much more responsive one for the chief executive. As I said, I have been advised that this was achieved without increasing overall spend on executive salaries.