Oh to be a staffer in the ACT Government. Aside from scheming for their own political ambitions and fielding daily calls from eccentrics it seems they been doing a healthy trade in paying each other out on entitlements.
The Auditor-General has announced the release of her report into the “Administration of employment issues for staff of Members of the Legislative Assembly”.
The first two points from her key findings:
- • All MLAs including Ministers are the employers, but they or their nominated supervisors have not always supervised staff compliance with legal and procedural requirements. With compliance not effectively monitored, breaches of employment conditions may be neither detected nor remedied.
• At the end of the 6th Assembly, 35 staff were paid termination payments totalling $469 706. The justification for termination payments to MLAs’ staff at the end of each Assembly needs review and reconsideration. Indeed, the Collective Agreement appeared to prevent termination payments to employees with a fixed employment term when the fixed period has expired.