Ms MARTIN - 1999-04-21
The Country Liberal Party has sapped our public service of morale and productivity through its Planning For Growth debacle. Public servants have been drowning in a sea of upheaval and uncertainty. Business and the community have been screaming, but the wheels of government are not turning. What will the Chief Minister do to restore morale and to get things moving?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the flourish of the words is quite interesting. Obviously the Labor leader has been very well trained. We’ve ‘sapped the public service’ and they’re ‘drowning in a sea of disarray’, was it? The fact of the matter is that the Planning For Growth exercise is a necessary exercise in government for the same reason that businesses conduct this exercise.
One of the reasons that Labor governments have been thrown out in other jurisdictions around Australia – Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria – is that they kept adding to the top in government. They just kept adding things on to government without ever looking at the bottom and looking at what needed to be cut. What’s happening in the Northern Territory, or has happened in the Northern Territory, is that our public service is being repositioned for good government in the 21st century. That’s the fact of it, and the public service is settling down quite well.
I’m the first to admit - I said it in one of the first statements I made when I became Chief Minister - that the Planning For Growth process is a difficult process to go through, but a necessary process. That process is now complete. The public service is repositioned for the strategies that government sees for the years ahead. The strategic framework of those strategies will be released by me in the coming months.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the flourish of the words is quite interesting. Obviously the Labor leader has been very well trained. We’ve ‘sapped the public service’ and they’re ‘drowning in a sea of disarray’, was it? The fact of the matter is that the Planning For Growth exercise is a necessary exercise in government for the same reason that businesses conduct this exercise.
One of the reasons that Labor governments have been thrown out in other jurisdictions around Australia – Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria – is that they kept adding to the top in government. They just kept adding things on to government without ever looking at the bottom and looking at what needed to be cut. What’s happening in the Northern Territory, or has happened in the Northern Territory, is that our public service is being repositioned for good government in the 21st century. That’s the fact of it, and the public service is settling down quite well.
I’m the first to admit - I said it in one of the first statements I made when I became Chief Minister - that the Planning For Growth process is a difficult process to go through, but a necessary process. That process is now complete. The public service is repositioned for the strategies that government sees for the years ahead. The strategic framework of those strategies will be released by me in the coming months.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016