Page 2085 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 25 October 1989
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Without an effective mechanism to achieve industry-wide coverage, the implementation of such schemes will rely on union enforcement and consequently will increase the potential for industrial disputation. The payouts to employees are very attractive in the CERT and MERT schemes, but they are not confined to the issue of redundancy and, under current interpretation, are similar to non-approved superannuation schemes. There are already a number of existing superannuation funds which provide benefits similar to CERT and MERT in operation in the ACT.
I now turn to cost to the ACT. The scheme disadvantages the ACT in that CERT and MERT have their central funds set up interstate. This effectively means that contributions made by ACT employers in the building and construction industry are being transferred interstate. The ACT will be losing up to, and perhaps in excess of, $6m each year if we do not introduce an ACT based scheme. The ACT Government has stated continually, almost to the point of nausea, that it wants and is encouraging investment in Canberra in the best interests of the economic future of the ACT. It has, however, done nothing within this industry to promote such investment and in fact will be actively responsible for funds leaving the ACT.
Certainly, CERT and MERT assure us that redundancy payments will be adequately dealt with, but what of the surplus funds? CERT and MERT cannot guarantee that the amount of contributions that have gone interstate will be met by an appropriate return from the surplus funds; and, if they could, these funds would be largely in the hands of the participants of CERT to do with as they wish, perhaps to further their own objectives and not to use these funds to make improvements within the industry.
The Liberal Party believes that an ACT redundancy fund should exist. We favour a single, central fund managed by the Building and Construction Industry Long Service Leave Board. Under this scheme funds will remain in Canberra and therefore the direct benefit of such a scheme cannot be denied - millions of dollars of funds invested in and remaining within the ACT. The benefits to the ACT building and construction industry will, we submit, be immense.
This scheme, managed through the Long Service Leave Board, would be the most advantageous and the preferred option for the ACT, given that, firstly, the board is seen as a neutral body, able to act impartially on issues that affect employers and employees within the industry; secondly, a statutory scheme would be capable of achieving complete participation by all relevant employers and employees in the Territory; thirdly, a Territory based scheme would enable the adoption of the appropriate investment policies which would benefit the ACT economy; fourthly, management of the scheme by the board would enable higher levels of efficiency and therefore lower overheads and other options in that the records or periods of service for every employee in the Territory and procedures for collecting
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