Nice work if you can get it. Or not.
Former cabinet ministers Dale Kirby and Eddie Joyce — removed from cabinet and the Liberal caucus while complaints about their behaviour are investigated — are both continuing to receive their $95,357 of House of Assembly pay while on indefinite leaves of absence.
The paid leaves were granted by the Speaker of the House, Perry Trimper.
There are two ways to look at the situation.
They are, after all, innocent until proven guilty, so it’s hard to justify penalizing them financially before the results of the investigations are known. In fact, you could argue that they are being punished before the investigations are even anywhere near complete; though they have been allowed to keep their base salaries, the two have lost their annual ministerial top-up of $48,665, which they’d normally receive in addition to their MHA pay, along with ministerial benefits like car allowances.
And, like everyone else, they still have their household bills to pay.
They are, after all, innocent until proven guilty, so it’s hard to justify penalizing them financially before the results of the investigations are known.
In some ways, their treatment is no different than that of any other worker placed on paid administrative leave while complaints against them wend their way through the system. An employer dealing with a harassment complaint in the workplace certainly has to separate the person making the allegation from the alleged harasser. To do anything else would be a burden on accused and accuser alike.
The House of Assembly is a workplace, and since the complaints have come from other MHAs, you can understand why their alleged victims would feel it was inappropriate to have to be in daily contact with the MHAs being investigated.
At the same time, MHAs do far more than sit in the House of Assembly. Many would argue the core of their work is their direct contact with constituents. Hopefully, an MHA on leave from sitting in the House would still be able to represent and help the people who elected them. If the leaves mean the MHAs are relieved of all of their duties and responsibilities — instead of just the ones that would bring them into direct contact with their accusers — it would be more difficult to argue their full pay should continue.
It’s also easy to understand how paid, indefinite leave would rankle an electorate that could never avail of the ability to simply ask for, and receive, an indefinite paid leave.
Some in the ever-calm and even-handed world of social media have already characterized it as a paid vacation. It probably doesn’t feel like a paid vacation to the two MHAs on leave.
Harassment complaints are difficult for employers; they have to protect the rights of accused and accuser, and handle whatever outcome an investigation may have — even if, in the end, the investigation does not support the complaint, and accused and accuser end up in the same workplace again.
