Question Time

Departmental Staff

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Listen, will the honourable Leader of the Government please behave himself. Set an example for the rest to follow. The honourable Leader of the Opposition.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation a question in relation to departmental staffing changes.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I think it was on 17 February that the Chief Executive of DEWNR sent out a publication regarding the restructure of the department, which I know we are not meant to have props, but I do have a copy of it here. My question to the minister is, what is the additional wages bill payable by DEWNR as a result of the department doubling its number of executive directors from three to six?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:19): I thank the honourable member for his cutting-edge question. I am a little disturbed and upset that he would wait until Thursday to introduce a question directed to me. I feel slighted that, clearly, he needed to go off and do a bit of research and trawl back through the public releases of an internal departmental restructuring.

Unfortunately, I think, from my memory of discussing this with my chief executive, he has got the question completely wrong and he is conflating levels in the executive service into senior executive members and not distinguishing between the three deputy chiefs. I will take that question on notice for him. I will bring back a proper internal structure for him to examine so he can understand the different layers of management at the senior executive level in the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.

I understand it is difficult for the Hon. Mr Ridgway, having never had much experience of government or, indeed, the Public Service, to understand how policy is made in government, how policy is carried out at the various levels of a relatively flat, I might say, hierarchy in such an organisation where most of the organisational work is done on the ground: people are out there talking to communities, working in communities, working on parks, working on land.

These are the experts that we rely on and particularly our scientific experts, people with well-established experience in park and landcare management and certainly with tertiary qualifications to back that up in many situations. One example, is the amount of investment the government has made in prescribed burning and burning on parks, and now burning off parks in a tenure-blind structure.

There was, of course, no prescribed burning whatsoever when we came into government. The Liberals, when they were last in government, had no plan for prescribed burning and protection of public lands or, indeed, of land adjacent to public lands. It was this government that has not only increased expenditure in our fire prevention strategy, we have also doubled the number of people involved in fire prevention. As I have explained in this chamber many times—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Minister, take your seat, please. The behaviour of certain members on both sides is just not acceptable—on both sides, not acceptable. The minister is up talking, giving a response to a question, and he is being drowned out by, not only people from opposition, but from his own side. Allow the minister to give the answer to the question without interjection. Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr President, for your protection. The Liberal opposition is drowning out the answer because they are embarrassed by the question asked by their leader, who had to be held back from asking questions all week, but we understand he is reasserting his dominance in the party through factional deals, trying to overthrow—

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: This is a waste of question time, the rubbish that is coming out of the minister's mouth. Mr President, please direct him to answer the question.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Did you ask for a point of order?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: No.

The PRESIDENT: No, you didn't. If you want to talk to me while the minister is on his feet, you make a point of order. You just don't jump up on your feet. The Hon. Mr Kyam Maher, I must say, out of all of us, out of everyone here today, you are the one whose behaviour is most disappointing. You are the Leader of the Government. You should set an example. Minister, please continue with your answer.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you for your protection. I must say, and I wouldn't normally jump to the defence of bad behaviour, but I would never, in my most ungracious manner in this place, actually say that the Hon. David Ridgway's question was a waste of time, but his colleagues here have been shouting that out across the chamber for the last five minutes.

I take the view that no question is a silly question, even if it may be ill-informed, because it gives me an opportunity to explain to the Hon. Mr Ridgway how he has misconstrued the information that he has seen. He hasn't quite understood the executive structure of my agency and how we have gone about, in fact, giving our very valuable public servants a larger say in the role that they have in their work and a larger say in talking to communities, asking communities what they want to see on parks.

I think one of our election promises was to spend just over $10 million on improving community access into our parks. From memory, I think we talked to about 11,000 people to get their views about how that money should be spent and what sorts of things they wanted to see in their parks. It was, of course, DEWNR employees who were at the forefront of engaging with their local communities to find out exactly what they wanted, and now we are delivering it.

So, I will go to the chief executive of my agency and I will ask her to explain, in a relatively easy to understand way for the Hon. Mr Ridgway, how the restructure has worked and how there has, in fact, been a misconception on his part in thinking that, relatively, DEWNR officers under her and the deputy—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: Junior officers?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: DEWNR.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: You said 'junior'.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: DEWNR officers, Mr President. The structure has been flattened, not increased. I am advised now that the increased number of executives reporting directly to the chief executive was achieved through flattening the existing structure. I am also advised that DEWNR's restructure was achieved without increasing overall spend on executive salaries. Nonetheless, that is the headline for the honourable member to take away today, but I will get a detailed response for him so that he can better understand how we are driving further efficiencies in the Public Service.