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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-15 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC SECTOR SALARIES

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:21): Will the Treasurer advise the house of increases to the remuneration of senior police, teachers and ambulance officers during the 2007-08 financial year? Is he aware of other proposals for alternate remuneration levels for South Australians?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (14:22): I was surprised—well, I was not really surprised because this is an old political tactic but it is really one that I think the opposition should reflect on. The member for Goyder, the shadow finance minister, attacked the government for the number of executives or people, I should say—public servants, fat cats—earning more than $100,000.

Can I say that my hardworking staff did some research and found that 83 per cent of the people who received $100,000 or more (or somewhere in that vicinity of 80 per cent plus) were largely police; 498 police officers this year—that is, 40 per cent of the claimed increase—are police officers. That is a result, I am told, of the enterprise bargaining agreement which has seen average weekly wages for police officers increase by some 16 per cent over the three-year life of the agreement. SAPOL advised me that senior sergeants commonly have remuneration packages of $100,000. What you are doing is attacking senior sergeants. You are attacking men and women in uniform.

Who else has earnt more than $100,000 a year? Teachers—the very people that they want to pay more to.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Teachers, non-executives—I am told—so we are talking about senior teachers. Do you know who else we are talking about?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Yes; principals and senior teachers.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: So we should not pay our principals?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Are you saying principals are not teachers? Is that what you are saying?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No; what I am saying is that senior teachers and principals are getting $100,000—not everyone.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. The Treasurer.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: What I said is that 283 of those people, I am advised, in fact, come from the ranks of senior teachers and principals.

Mr Pisoni: Teachers—where? In the classroom?

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley will come to order.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I do not really want to have to shout above them, if I can avoid it. I am advised that 109 ambulance officers are now earning $100,000 a year. So, I have to say, particularly coming from a member of parliament who is more than happy to take home his $100,000-plus salary—

Mr Hamilton-Smith: How much are you taking home?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Well, I am not complaining.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Yes; I am well paid. I am not complaining but, for somebody—

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: For somebody who himself is happy to take home in excess of $100,000, I would have thought that the last people he would be attacking would be senior sergeants, men and women in uniform, principals and senior teachers in our education system, and ambulance officers. They are people who have to go out there and do the ugliest work in society.

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: So, a senior sergeant is a fat cat, is he? All right. The Leader of the Opposition chooses to call senior police officers fat cats.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Part of the question was: are there any alternative views? We dug up an article from 1998. The then member for Waite, a backbencher of the Liberal government, did a piece with Annabel Crabb.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It is good. The backbencher—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Get a photo of this guy, will you? The backbencher, Waite MP, Mr Martin Hamilton-Smith, said an agreement to lower wages would get interstate business 'flocking to this state'.

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Yes; this is what he was calling for: 'a jobs pact between organised labour, employers and our government should aim to deliver such an outcome—that is, lower wages'. Mr Hamilton-Smith accused the Labor Party and the union movement of lacking the will to solve unemployment:

After all, it is nice to be able to beat the government with the unemployment stick, and unemployed people are not members of the trade union movement. We already know the cost of living in this state and the quality of life is superior to many other parts of Australia. Could we not contain wage growth in South Australia relative to other states to give ourselves a competitive edge?

Maybe you had better have a talk to your colleague over there.

He went on to call on the opposition (the then Labor government), unions and business to club together, band together, to make our wages lower so that they are so attractive that business will flock to the state from everywhere else in Australia to set up shop. The then government was asked to respond to this call by Hamilton-Smith for lower wages in this state. The then government enterprises minister, Dr Armitage, who was responsible for industrial relations, said, 'I am unavailable for comment.' The then employment minister, Unley MP, Mark Brindal, distanced himself from his colleague's proposal saying, 'Competition could be maintained without reducing wages.'

So, in 1998, the Leader of the Opposition's economic policy for this state was to have low wages, dumb down the state, become a low-cost state through low wages. This Leader of the Opposition will say and do anything to attract an audience—no economic or financial credibility—and he bumbles from one good idea to the next.

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