Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

In that case Ms Leon has informed the Senate that Dr Henry is now employed on the basis of 2½ days a week, but it has not been 2½ days a week for the entire time since he commenced work. I think I flagged with you at the last estimates that it was expected that the nature of the Asian century task force would have some ebbs and flows, with peak periods in the middle and probably slower periods at the end. And this has been the experience. Could the parliamentary secretary provide the Federation Chamber with a complete week-by-week breakdown of the number of days worked by Dr Ken Henry, showing which weeks if he ever worked 40 hours a week whereby he would be paid at the full rate. I do not think I have ever met a departmental secretary who has only worked 40 hours a week. But if Dr Henry works 40 hours a week, he gets paid at the full rate. I also notice that since we last met in this chamber there has been about $100,000 increase for the position of head of Treasury. It is now up to some $615,000 a year—the rate that Dr Henry is to be paid—and it will go up a further $100,000, I think. Dr Henry under the terms under which he was appointed will enjoy those rises. I am sorry; it goes up to $653,000 on 1 July 2012.

We would like to know for that sort of money precisely what Dr Henry is doing. I know he has been doing the Asian paper, which is due to be delivered in the middle of the year, and that Dr de Brouwer has confirmed that there are discussions with Dr Henry that he will be continuing after that, but he describes that as a 'live' discussion. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could tell us what precisely Dr Henry might be doing for either the full amount of $615,000 a year or pro rata on whatever number of days he is doing and what that work might be. I think we need to know a little more than it being a 'live' discussion. It was confirmed again that Dr Henry will continue as a special adviser, but there has been a project to which there has not been an agreement yet. Could you confirm that to date there is no agreement as to what his future work might be?

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