False

Committee's report

The committee tabled its report on the Bill on Friday 28 August 2020.  The Bill was passed with amendment on 9 September 2020. 

 About the Bill

On 16 July 2020, the Premier and Minister for Trade, the Hon Annastacia Palaszczuk MP, introduced the Public Service and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020 (Bill) into the Legislative Assembly. The Bill was referred to the Education, Employment and Small Business Committee for detailed consideration and report by Friday 28 August 2020. The committee tabled its report on Friday 28 August 2020.

The explanatory notes state that the objectives of the Bill are to give effect to the stage one public sector management reforms. The reforms arise from the recommendations of the independent review of public sector employment laws by Mr Peter Bridgman (the Bridgman Review) which was commissioned to ensure Queenslanders have the most responsive, consistent and reliable public service possible. The Bridgman Review also complements the review into the Queensland Public Sector Workforce Reporting undertaken by Emeritus Professor Peter Coaldrake (the Coaldrake Review) and builds on the measures to restore fairness in public sector employment undertaken by the Palaszczuk Government since 2015.

The objectives of the Bill are to be achieved by amending the Public Service Act 2008 (PS Act) and the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (IR Act) to:

• drive more effective and consistent application of the existing commitment to maximise employment security by providing clear language that states that permanent employment is the default basis for public sector employment and that other non-permanent forms of employment should only be used when ongoing employment is not viable or appropriate.
• provide for public service appeals which are currently heard under the PS Act by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) to instead be heard under the IR Act to ensure transparency and increase consistency in appeal decisions.
• establish positive performance management principles in the PS Act that will support managers and employees to work together to support optimal performance
• clarify the threshold for taking disciplinary action, and
• provide for new directives to guide disciplinary action and procedures, investigations and positive performance management

Submissions

Submissions closed on 30 July 2020. Submissions are available under the "View Submissions" tab. 

Timeline

Related information

To subscribe to the committee mailing list, please click here.