Page 5668 - Week 17 - Thursday, 5 December 1991
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Mr Speaker, the IRC, in effect, adopted a subsisting Federal metal industry award which provided redundancy compensation of up to eight weeks' pay once a threshold of four years' employment was passed. Those of us residing in Canberra at the time, those of us advising subcontractors and contractors and those of us familiar with the union movement knew that it was a general push at that time in the very strong building market.
The other award issue, of course, is the $20-a-week redundancy payment that had been successfully developed under the industrial relations guidelines and become part of an industrial award. Mr Speaker, shortly after this Assembly was formed the issue came up in this house in the context of an apparent dispute between the Master Builders Association, as Mr Berry correctly mentioned earlier, and the Australian Federation of Construction Contractors. Regrettably, those differences, to some extent, still continue. If the proper role of government in industrial relations is to promote harmony for the betterment and enrichment of all, Mr Berry's statement earlier that he could wipe his hands of the issue because it was an issue in Sydney is an extraordinary comment.
Mr Berry: That is not what I said.
MR COLLAERY: You will get your chance to reply, Mr Berry.
Mr Berry: No, I did not say that.
MR COLLAERY: I will stand corrected if you can prove that.
Mr Berry: That is good. I hope you stand corrected.
MR COLLAERY: At that time both the Residents Rally and the Liberal Party pressed for the creation of an ACT based scheme such that the moneys accruing to account were not siphoned off into interstate coffers. It appears that the statements that both the Residents Rally and the Liberal Party made on 25 October 1989 in this house were prophetic.
I go back to the overview. The matter finally came to a head before the IRC on 19 October 1989, when the potentiality for double dipping by employees - that is, by both taking a lump sum and backing up later - was removed. Commissioner Grimshaw decided, in effect, that any period of service during which contributions are paid into an agreed fund would not count as service for the purposes of the award. Once that quarantine arrangement was achieved, it appears that the matter went off the political agenda in this Assembly; but, of course, it has not been lost sight of by both employees and employers.
The situation that appears to have developed, subsequent to Commissioner Grimshaw's ruling in the IRC, is that at all AFCC controlled sites employers pay to CERT. On the other hand, if one uses the award based computation of the
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