Parliamentary and Public Administration Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 – Second Reading Speech delivered in Parliament 29 May 2013
Mr Pallas (Tarneit) — I rise to speak in support of the Parliamentary and Public Administration Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. The last time this matter came up for debate, or a matter similar to this, was the Parliamentary Salaries and Superannuation Amendment (Salary Restraint) Bill 2012. I was among a very select few who spoke on that bill. I had hoped at the time that I would not be afforded the privilege again, but here I am.
The community regards bills such as this with due scepticism.
That is their right and indeed that is their duty. But I think most members of the public tolerate their elected representatives drawing some sort of wage. It is after all a job and it is work. We must remember when we talk about an issue like this that democracy does not work if people are not remunerated for their work, and that goes for people in any profession. The Victorian people understand that, and I am sure, more than that, that they respect it. As I said, most hold no profound opposition to the idea of their representatives drawing some sort of salary, but I accept that a lot of them differ over its quantity and its adjustment. A transparent system of wage adjustment would assist in holding us all accountable. Transparent systems keep us accountable so that the community can be sure that we are putting in our day’s work.
I think it is fair to say that more and more Victorians are looking at this government and wondering if they are getting their money’s worth. For the last two and half years this government has lurched from crisis to crisis.
Schools and TAFEs are closing, the important programs in our classrooms have been abolished, crime rates have gone up but funding for Victoria Police has gone down, our hospitals are in crisis, our elective surgery waiting lists are at their highest on record, our ambos are spending hours banked up outside emergency departments that are too full to take patients and the government does not have a plan for jobs. This government does not have a plan for the future of the manufacturing industry. That is not governing and it is just not good enough.
In looking at the appropriate levels of remuneration for members of Parliament the community has every right to assess the performance of its elected members of Parliament. That is intuitively and innately a part of the political process. The esteem that members of Parliament are held in, the esteem we hold this Parliament in, is critical in terms of the way that the community views us and views our work.
This government has essentially spent two years advocating for the principle of performance pay. I have to wonder how much members of this government would be taking home each fortnight if they subjected themselves to performance pay. I wonder how much faster this government would have resolved the many public sector disputes if their own salary was on the line.
In my six years in this place I have never spoken out against a pay rise for Victorian workers and I do not intend to start now. Workers have every right to advocate for and appropriately pursue their aspirations in terms of their remuneration. But members of this government have embraced the idea of performance pay as if it is part of their political identity. I want to point out that it took 12 months to resolve the nurses dispute. I want to point out that it took two years to resolve the teachers’ pay dispute. I also want to give a nod of support to the hardworking electorate officers in this Parliament who are engaged in a prolonged enterprise bargaining agreement negotiation.
Across so many professions in the public sector tens of thousands of Victorians have seen their rightful pay rises stifled in the miasma of this government.
Let us compare that sort of tardiness with the sheer efficiency with which this government has prepared this bill. The bill prescribes in great detail how much a parliamentarian should earn but does not do enough to prescribe exactly what a parliamentarian should be doing with their time. While I support the relevant measures in the bill, I certainly think that more could be done in relation to the effectiveness of this Parliament’s processes.
This government likes to talk about productivity and performance pay; perhaps it is time we tried a couple of new key performance indicators ourselves. If we are drawing a greater salary, we should have a greater number of sitting days. If we are drawing a greater salary, we should place a ban on parliamentarians engaging in external employment. That practice is not as widespread in Victoria as it is elsewhere, but it still exists on the other side of the house and it should not; it is moonlighting. A member of Parliament should not be able to divide their time between their public duty and their private interests. It should be the case that parliamentarians do only the tasks for which they were elected.
I urge the Parliament to consider reforms such as this. They would improve the trust that Victorians extend towards this place and its members, and improving trust is a critical part of everything we do in this place.
When it comes to integrity and the functions of this Parliament, that consideration should be sovereign. It should guide everything we do, but this government has not done enough of it over the last two and a half years.
It is an honour to sit in this place as the member for Tarneit. It is the single greatest privilege of my professional life, and I have never taken it for granted. I am sure that is the same for my colleagues on both sides of this house. We understand the great privilege that has been bestowed on us. However, we must do more to show the community how honoured we are to be here and how serious we consider this role to be. That means we should demand more of ourselves. It also means we should demand a better standard of government. That is an observation I make of us collectively as well as directing it to the government benches. We can do better than cutting funds from TAFE. We can do better than cutting funds from sport. We can do better than cutting funds from hospitals.
We can do better than cutting funds from jobs, than cutting resources and cutting down a duly elected Premier.
We have to earn the support our community so generously gives us. We have to make decisions with only their interests at heart. Most importantly, we have to talk more about the reforms that affect our community and less about the reforms that affect us — reforms such as this one, which really should be the subject of an independent process of review. I urge the government to consider the establishment of such a review body. I urge the government to investigate all recommendations to that effect. No longer should politicians sit in judgement of their own worth for the community. Such a tribunal would uphold the democratic pillar of parliamentary remuneration but by its design would also produce fairer and more independent decisions, decisions which the community would be able to trust. There should be no more such unsustainable mechanisms residing within our control.
No other section of the community indulges itself with mechanisms to remunerate itself that are managed by itself. The opposition supports the concept of an independent review to provide the government with options for transparent and accountable governance arrangements.
The wages of members of this place are in an uncertain situation following the findings of the remuneration tribunal. As a consequence of the legislation before us there has now been provided some greater level of certainty, but it is not absolute certainty, and there is still a fundamental flaw affecting the integrity of the processes of wage fixation for members of Parliament. We must satisfy the Victorian people that they are getting their money’s worth. We must focus on them and on them alone. So that I do not betray that focus any further, I will conclude my remarks there. The opposition supports this bill.