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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-29 Daily Xml
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MINISTERIAL OFFICES

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:17): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of the Government a question on the subject of ministerial offices.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The government, in partial defence of its budget, has made the claim that it is cutting its cloth by a 15 per cent cut in ministerial office costs, and the Premier and Treasurer have often quoted and claimed a 15 per cent cut in ministerial office costs. The Under Treasurer has confirmed this supposed 15 per cent cut in ministerial office costs will not apply to the non-salary costs in ministerial offices, which in their initial estimate was some 30 per cent of total costs, but it more significantly also would not be applied to what is known as the departmental top-up payments for ministerial office costs.

In the case of minister Holloway's office, the budget papers claim total costs of $1.9 million this year. There is no cut this year, but next year, if it is 30 per cent non-salary costs, $600,000 would be exempt from the 15 per cent cut. Also, in 2008-09, on the most recent figures the Budget and Finance Committee has produced, his department was paying over a quarter of a million dollars a year in departmental top-up costs for staff and other resources in his office, and the Under Treasurer has confirmed that the 15 per cent cut will not apply to that quarter of a million dollars plus.

Some ministers, for example, as I am sure you would be aware, actually get departmental top-up payments of some $700,000 a year for seven or eight full-time equivalents, and mysteriously the 15 per cent cut will not be applied to the departmental top-up. My questions are:

1. Why did the minister decide not to apply the 15 per cent cut to the non-salaried costs in his ministerial office and also to the hundreds of thousands of dollars of ministerial office costs being paid for by his department and other departments?

2. Does the minister agree that this is just another example of Rann government spin?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (15:20): There is no spin at all. This government is responsible in its management, and ministers will be responsible in the way in which they run their offices, as they will be in relation to their departments.

The Hon. Mr Lucas talks about departmental top-ups. Really, what he is talking about is a longstanding practice that has existed ever since I have been around in politics—and that is a long time—in terms of having ministerial liaison officers located within ministers' offices to act as go-betweens in relation to correspondence (and other matters) between the department and ministers' offices.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Well, we know that is just one office that nominally has responsibility for other functions. These so-called departmental top-ups are just salaries for ministerial liaison officers, who are the people who prepare correspondence and also deal with the sort of FOI requests that people such as the Hon. Mr Lucas are continually making—and it is a big increase. I suppose we could easily reduce the number of officers involved, in which case the Hon. Mr Lucas and others would no doubt be complaining because they would not then be getting all the masses of information they are continually requesting in relation to FOIs and other matters.

We now live in an era when there is far more information available on the internet than there has been in any other era. However, in spite of that, member opposite, as part of their political tactics, make endless FOI requests, and that is the sort of work that ministerial liaison officers are involved in. Is the ex-leader of the opposition really suggesting that we not have those people and therefore have longer delays in relation to those services? The fact is that ministers will be leaner in their operations, as indeed will other areas of government.

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