Page 2459 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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Mr Collaery: They have Jim Cairns. They have Jim Cairns's writing.
MR KAINE: I have a certain regard for Jim Cairns, too. But he is on the outer with the Labor Party as well.
Mr Duby: Who isn't?
MR KAINE: Everybody is. As a government we have attempted to have consultation. This is a word that the people in the Opposition use constantly, but they do not have the faintest idea what that means. They talk about consultation.
Mr Berry: You wouldn't understand it.
MR KAINE: I understand it very well. We will put into effect what we understand, and that is that there should be a dialogue between landlords and tenants, that they should consult, each with the other, and that they should come up with a solution to their problem. You would not understand that, Mr Berry. You shake your head because your solution is for the trade unions to heavy everybody else. You do not want to consult or negotiate. You want the trade unionists to tell everybody how they will do their business. That is your solution to the problem. If they cannot get their way they go on strike; they hold the whole community to ransom.
Mr Jensen: No, it is not a strike any more; it is a health and safety issue now.
MR KAINE: Whatever it is, they withdraw their labour. The different solutions are interesting. The Labor Party, through Paul Whalan, another ex-member - if he is not now, he soon will be - wrote a pre-election letter about introducing fair trading legislation, but it did not introduce it. We are doing it because we believe there are two elements to this: One is an agreement between landlords and tenants as to how they do their business; the other is some legislative backing to give that code of practice some force in law. We will do it. You have talked about it - there has been a great deal of rhetoric - although I am absolutely confident that you do not understand it, but we, Mr Berry, will do it. That is the difference.
MR STEVENSON (8.38): There is no doubt that we all agree that there are serious problems in this matter. A letter to the Speaker of this Assembly, dated 27 February 1990, from the Commercial and Retail Tenants Association, CARTA, painted a different picture of what the recommendations contained. I will quote from that letter, to put on record exactly what the people who are one side of this debate - not members of this Assembly, but the people who are having the major problem - say.
Mr Jensen: What is the date, Dennis?
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