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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-12-09 Daily Xml
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Labor Government

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:49): I want to talk about an arrogant and out of touch government by referring, in particular, to three examples of a sneaky and tricky premier in relation to some recent issues.

The salary package issue has attracted outrage in the community, questions today in the parliament in relation to the salaries of chief executive officers, but the sneakiness and trickiness of the Premier has been that in none of this has he been transparent and accountable. The only way these massive increases to chief executives were ever revealed was through a whistleblower within the Public Service blowing the whistle on the Premier saying, 'You need to have a look at these particular chief executives, the Premier has been doing sneaky and secret deals with some of them and giving some of the less competent performers massive salary increases.' The fact that some of these people are earning two and three times the salary of hardworking members of the backbench on both the government and the opposition side is an interesting point in and of itself.

In addition to that were the questions asked today. Has the Premier again in a sneaky and tricky fashion snuck through another salary increase for David Swan and Tony Harrison and the other CEOs over and above the $67,000 pay increase that has now been revealed? Have they been given another 2.5 per cent increase? Again, this was a question I asked minister Gago in October, and there was no answer then, no answer now, and it is now an issue that hopefully the media will pursue with the Premier to flush him out and at least be transparent and accountable about it. If you are going to give salary increases to chief executive officers, be prepared to stand up and defend them. Indeed, we have had that debate in relation to members of parliament recently, and at least on that particular issue members in this parliament were prepared to stand up and say, 'Okay, here it is, it is now up to an independent tribunal to make a decision.' It will not be a decision being taken by a sneaky and tricky premier, it will be a decision taken by an independent tribunal.

The second area is the issue of the camera crew accompanying the Premier through Europe. Questions were asked by the opposition two weeks ago of minister Hunter when it first became apparent that a camera crew was travelling with the Premier. Minister Hunter refused to answer the question. It was pursued by ABC Radio on that following Friday and they were told by the Premier's media adviser Jarrad Pilkington that, no, there was not a camera crew travelling with them. The impression was given that it was a freelancer who had been picked up in Europe to assist. What has happened, of course, is that local media identities seeing some of the professionally produced film production that has been sent back to media outlets noticed that people from 57 Films, a film production company—not a roustabout stringer company hired in Europe, but a film production company that operates out of Glenside and out of South Australia—was producing these packages for the Premier.

What has now been clarified and the Premier's media advisers say, 'Shock, horror, there must have been some miscommunication,' now that they have been caught out. This particular crew had been employed at taxpayers' expense, were doing other jobs in Europe and are now following Premier Jay around as Premier Jay's travelogue. Not only have packages been sent back for news reports where the Premier's own media staff are asking tough questions but Premier Weatherill stands there answering the tough questions that either Chris Burford or Jarrad Pilkington put to the Premier about how wonderful he is and how important his trip is in Europe. Of course, all of this self-promotion is going up on the Premier's Facebook site as well.

The third area is in relation to ministerial staffers. The government is required each year to Gazette the ministerial staffers and their salaries. Last year they did it on 11 December. This year they brought it forward to 12 November and the salaries are exactly the same. Why? Because soon after 12 November this year, salaries were increased and backdated for ministerial staff back to 1 July so that they will not then have to produce the new salary increases until the end of next year, 12 months after they get the salary increase, because it is a tricky, sneaky, deceptive device by the Premier to conceal the salary increases of a general nature and any bigger ones that might have been given to favoured ministerial staffers.

Time expired.

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