Shane Ross (Independent)

I think Senator Dardis can live with it too. He is showing great art of compromise in this area. I wish to sound a note of warning of a dark cloud on the horizon — the issue of the public sector and public sector pay. Not long ago the public service rolled all over the Government and achieved benchmarking which caused some controversy in this House. It cost a lot of money and I think Senator Mansergh and I disagreed about that. Senator Mansergh no doubt would say again in retrospect that it was not a lot of money. The spectre of further benchmarking is coming in 2007, which is a huge sop to the same trade unions. The problem is that the Minister may have the money in 2007 — and I hope he does — to give away to the public service in an orgy of spending to keep them happy and stop them going on to the streets. What we have not seen in that period, and which is not contestable, is any meaningful reform in the public service. I have examined this in some detail and it is absolutely undeniable that those promised reforms in return for benchmarking have not been delivered. They were a fiction with which the Government was happy to go along in order to get over the hump and hope it could pay for it. I hope we are not about to see the same fantasy, the same farce, the same quarrels with the teachers about things they ought to have done years ago, the same fudges going on about the public service, the same nonsensical verification committees sitting and saying all is being done when it has not, and giving the nod. They were acting like stuffed dummies and nodding through the money for the public service.

While I hope and believe the Minister will be immensely successful in his post — today he has given us great encouragement in that regard — we must ensure that if there is to be another benchmarking round it is not done without a quid pro quo.