Page 5809 - Week 18 - Tuesday, 10 December 1991
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employees or to Totalcare Industries. So, that is also valuable. It might be helpful if the Minister or the Chief Minister were to spell out at some point exactly how the Government see that working. What sorts of requirements are going to be made to apply to workers in that industry?
Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it is tremendous that we have made progress in this area. We are seeing a little bit of commonsense exercised by this Government. As I said before, I regret the delay in getting to this point. It does need to be borne in mind that in the future there will be other such decisions to be made. We need to put aside ideology when making those decisions and bear in mind what is in the best interests both of the wider community and of the workers in this particular industry. We need to ensure that the ACT is best placed to take advantage of the end of the recession, if it does end, and to be able to weather the ongoing storms that we are likely to experience because of the gradual reduction in Commonwealth funding. Corporatising an enterprise like the Mitchell supply centre is an integral part of that process. It puts our services on a stronger basis for the future and I think it needs to be applauded.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (5.25), in reply: The Liberal Opposition made essentially two points. One of them was a very sensible and rational point made by both the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Humphries about the obvious potential difficulty if you have two employees working side by side on the line, one of whom is covered by public service conditions and the other not, being an employee who joins Totalcare once it is a corporate entity.
The point they raise that there is a potential for industrial difficulties there is a valid one, and the Government has indicated in the presentation speech, and I indicated when I addressed the Totalcare Industries employees last week to launch the corporate identity, that we are aware of that potential problem and we will ensure, through good employment practices, that the potential for differences, the potential for two different employment practices, is minimised. So, the point is a valid one. We are aware of the point and we have assured staff and unions and management that it is something that will need to be handled with sensitivity, and I am sure that it will be.
I would expect that, should there ever, heaven forbid, again be a Liberal government in this Territory, the approach taken by a Liberal government will be very similar, because you would be aware of that very unsound management practice of having unnecessary difficulties with different terms and conditions of employment for two people working side by side on a line. So, that was a sensible point and I can assure both Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries that we are aware of that. We will ensure that good employment practices apply and that we do not have those sorts of difficulties.
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