Page 2596 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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They wanted a system of enterprise bargaining and enterprise unionism which resulted, at the end of the day, in average wages for Australians being lower and the trade union movement being significantly weaker. That, I suppose, is an expected argument from the conservative side of politics wishing to diminish the effect of the trade union movement in Australian politics, but it is not the best outcome for Australian workers.
I think the accord agreements which have been struck between the Australian Labor Government and the trade union movement have really set the pace and will deliver to the Australian economy generally more than any other plan could have in recent times. It is important that governments keep faith with workers in relation to wages and I think the statement that I have issued on wages policy to apply to the ACT Government Service keeps faith with our employees.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Sitting suspended from 12.35 to 2.30 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Homeless Youth Program
MR KAINE: I direct a question to the Minister for Housing and Community Services. There is a Housing Trust house in Waramanga where homeless youth are taken care of by a lady named Monica Hamers, who has been doing this work unassisted for some years. She was put into that house about two years ago. According to local media reports, she is being removed from the house and moved into a smaller house in Duffy, I think, which means that she will not be able to take care of as many homeless youth as she has done in the past. She has apparently been told that her own children cannot stay in the family home, which that house is and which the new house will remain. Can you confirm these facts and, if so, can you tell me why Mrs Hamers is being moved and why she is being told that her own children cannot stay in what to her is her family home?
MR CONNOLLY: This issue was agitated yesterday afternoon on the Elaine Harris program. Had Mr Kaine listened to the Elaine Harris program this afternoon at 1 o'clock, he would have heard both me and the president of the Canberra City Lions Club explaining the situation.
The situation is that Mrs Hamers had for some years been informally operating a sort of drop-in refuge from a bedsitter she had rented from the Housing Trust. During the period in which my colleague Mrs Grassby was Minister for Housing and Urban Services, a very innovative program was initiated by which Housing Trust properties were made available to community groups and the community group could then bring somebody in to run a program.
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