Metropolitan Fire Service Travel Allowance

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (15:03): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector regarding the legal obligations of government.

Leave granted.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: The South Australian Employment Tribunal described the government's failure to comply with its legal obligations as disturbing. It found the issue stemmed from not only a lack of capacity but from poor management, inadequate resourcing and refusal to allocate staff even after the problems were known with the MFS travel allowance issue. My question to the minister is: does the minister accept that his government knowingly failed to meet its legal obligations to public sector employees and what consequences, if any, have followed for those responsible?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:04): I thank the honourable member for his question. I will need to check but I think the judgement sets out some of the factual scenario that led to this occurring, and that included people who used to do this rostering manually leaving the position and it not being picked up when further people started. I think in the judgement it sets out that there was an assumption that the IT system just automatically did it without the new people who came into the position realising it was a manual adjustment that is made.

Without besmirching any people who have tried to perform their duties to the best of their ability, I think it is, as the honourable Minister Bourke said today, regrettable that this has occurred. Certainly, I think there are words in the judgement to the effect that public sector workers and the South Australian community in general are entitled to expect that employers, including the government, are adhering to legal obligations to pay people their allowances on time.

I have spoken in the last couple of days to both the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment and the declared employer of public employees about this matter, and I have requested that the decision of the SAET be drawn to leaders in public sector agencies, and that they are reminded of the importance of complying with their legal obligations in relation to all workers' entitlements.