Page 4960 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Finally, I would like also to address the issue of industrial democracy. It is an issue which I believe you must give more than lip-service to, and it is an issue that I believe has largely been ignored in the drafting of this Bill. I think that the Government has not adhered to some fundamental principles about the rights of workers to participate in the decision making, and particularly to participate in the decision making about their work place and about issues in the work place that directly affect them.
I would ask why the Bill, as presented to us, does not contain a provision requiring the Territory owned corporations boards to contain a representative of the workers nominated by the Trades and Labour Council. There is no such representation provided for, and yet that is a fundamental issue in industrial democracy. If we are to pay more than lip-service to industrial democracy those kinds of issues have to be addressed in the legislation. I would ask, also, why there is no commitment about the Territory owned corporations boards involving the unions and requesting union input into the development of the Territory owned corporations' statements of corporate intent. This is the fundamental statement of what the organisation is about and I think it is a basic management principle - apart from being a basic requirement of industrial democracy - that the workers are involved in that kind of a statement, have had their say in it, and feel that they, in fact, own that intention of the organisation. So it is of concern to me that that is not reflected either.
On that basis, I advise that we will be opposing this Bill because I do not believe that it has been developed to a sufficient state that we can support it. My principal reasons, as I have stated, are that the workers in Territory owned corporations have not so far been able to receive a guarantee from this Government as to their award and non-award conditions of employment, so there is no guarantee at the moment that the corporatisation model we have before us will protect those workers - no guarantee at all.
I have said before that we do not oppose corporatisation in principle. I believe that we should look at each and every case as it arises; but this piece of legislation, being the umbrella legislation, must have built into it those basic precepts which protect the workers' rights and also which allow for full expression of the workers' views through quite normal industrial democracy processes. So, at this point we do not have sufficient guarantees, and the Bill must therefore be regarded as deficient in those aspects.
Sitting suspended from 5.09 to 8.00 pm
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