Public Sector Employees

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:10): A supplementary arising from the answer: is the Treasurer aware whether government officials are currently in negotiations that would see non-wage elements, such as rights and entitlements, wound back in industrial agreements for front-line workers?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:10): Every public sector enterprise bargaining arrangement involves the capacity for efficiency offsets. For example, in relation to the Australian Education Union dispute, the AEU agreed to some offsets in relation to what was eventually a 2.35 per cent salary increase for teachers and a 3.35 per cent salary increase for principals and preschool directors.

I am not sure how enterprise bargaining was conducted under the former government, but under this government there is a discussion about what is a reasonable salary increase, and if there is to be something that is a little bit above that there are productivity efficiency offsets in terms of what the taxpayers of South Australia would get out of that particular deal. In relation to that my colleague the Labor Treasurer for Victoria, Tim Pallas, has adopted exactly the same position: that is, a reasonable salary increase being offered and, if there were to be something a bit higher than that it had to be offset by efficiency or productivity offsets agreed to by the public sector unions. I think that is also the position of the Liberal government in Tasmania.