Page 1996 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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The Rally considers the unions to be an important and integral part of the working life of Canberrans.
Since I no longer speak for them, I am sure they will be able to comment on that, should they wish to or should they wish to disagree with that. The letter further states:
Allow me, therefore, to assure you that should you be able to show us how we have excluded unions we would be prepared to consider changing the proposed legislation to rectify the problem.
I would also hope to discuss with you -
and it goes on. The facts of the matter are that Mr Charles McDonald, some members of the public service and several other people were able to show me that, and in this particular case I must say that we were wrong and that I believe that restoring the term "the involved unions" into the legislation - in other words, leaving the legislation as it is in terms of "the involved unions" - will allow exactly the thing that I was attempting to allow; it will include the unions but it will not compulsorily include them. That was the goal; that was the aim I was trying for, and the legislation already does that.
Mr Stefaniak: You were right first time, wrong second time, Michael.
MR MOORE: To my satisfaction, that is the case. I realise that the Liberal Party members will not agree with that, nor have they ever, but I have no particular need to please the Liberal Party on this particular thing. I am looking to see, from my perspective, how I can make the very best occupational health and safety legislation available to Canberrans.
Another area - and I hope the Deputy Chief Minister in particular will pay attention to this, since he has made some comment on it - is foreign languages. The foreign languages area in the legislation caused us some deal of anguish because, whilst we recognise the point that the Minister made, that there are many people in the ACT who speak foreign languages, we also recognise the particular problem to which Mr Stefaniak drew attention, and that is prejudice. Because the demand made by the foreign language section in the legislation would put an extra onus on the employers and is something that, particularly if they are employing three, four or five people from different countries, could make it quite an onerous task, we felt that it may make it easier for them, then, to choose to employ somebody who spoke English. We felt that, whilst the goal of including it in the legislation was admirable, its effect could go against the very values that the people who had included it were trying to achieve. That is why I think it is important that we remove that foreign language phrase from the particular section.
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