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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-07-01 Daily Xml
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Public Sector Employment

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:11): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Premier a question on the subject of wasted taxpayers' money.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: In January of this year Premier Weatherill's new Chief Executive Officer, Mr Kym Winter-Dewhirst, who was a former Labor Party staffer, sacked on the spot a senior executive within the Department of the Premier and Cabinet who only late in 2014 had won a senior executive position within Premier and Cabinet on a five-year contract which did not expire until 2019.

As a result of that, the contract's termination provisions were activated which required a payout of 16 months' salary. Given the executive's salary was somewhere between $153,000 and $235,000, as a member of an SAES1 executive classification, the termination provisions resulted in taxpayers paying somewhere between $204,000 and $313,000 for the executive's position being terminated. Weeks later, the Weatherill government then re-employed the same executive in an executive position in SAFECOM. My questions to the minister representing the Premier are:

1. Can the Premier give some explanation as to the reasons why the Premier's chief executive would sack an executive without exploring the possibility of vacant executive positions somewhere else in the public sector so that the termination provisions were not activated within the contract?

2. Can the Premier provide on notice since March 2010—so in the last five years—how many executives have had termination provisions activated as a result of the termination and who have subsequently been re-employed in an executive position in the public sector by the Weatherill government?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:14): I thank the member for his questions and will refer them to the Premier in another place and bring back a response.

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