Page 177 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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We are now playing catch-up recession. If anyone doubts that, you will note that the unemployment figures today say that we are at 8.8 per cent - the highest since 1983 and perhaps the highest ever in this Territory. If anything gives this Government the reason and the timing it needs to institute the changes we need in ACTION and other areas, now is the time.
The ACT cannot afford now, or ever, the kind of industrial relations which rules supreme at ACTION. If this is an example of industrial relations in the ACT, let me tell the people what kind of industrial relations is okay, as far as we are aware, by this Labor Government in the ACT. In the ACT, apparently, you can tell your boss that you are sick and go and play golf with your mates, who have all done the same thing. If you happen to get caught, you go to a doctor and get a sick certificate. Then, if someone sees you on the 10th green and says, "Listen, I saw you on the 10th green; you did not look too sick to me", you go and tell your union, who will support you in legal action against your employer. If that does not work, of course, you can go on strike.
What was this strike last week all about? We get to hear what it was all about. On one day it was about service cutbacks; on another day it is about payments for driving articulated buses. In other words, the unions have more changes in mind than clean underwear. May I suggest that it is also about bullying management and perhaps overpaid golf days for workers. I would like someone to deny that in the future.
I would also like to know on what grounds an industrial dispute has been notified - or was notified - to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. I would like to know about that too, and, I dare say, so would the people of the ACT. Tell me: Will the matter of the golf playing workers be pursued, or was it pursued before the Industrial Relations Commission? We do not know, because it was done in conference, in camera, or whatever. Tell me: What was decided yesterday in the Industrial Relations Commission? Was it that the status quo is maintained? Has there been any change made to what it was prior to the strike?
Some people might scoff at all this, but I do not think I am exaggerating. If you read the Canberra Times this morning - Mr Berry, the Industrial Relations Minister, tends to tell us that he does not read the Canberra Times because sometimes he does not agree with what they say about him - you will see that a very astute journalist, Peter Clack, has reported on a few minor, to say the least, inconsistencies with payments to the ACTION staff.
Before, people said, "Well, listen; it is not really an illegal payment". Let me now quote from the Auditor-General's report. It is not my report, or Mr Westende's report. Let me quote, Madam Speaker, from the report of the Auditor-General. The date of this report, by the way, is 30 April 1991 - not too long before this Labor Government took office again. This is what the Auditor-General's report said:
In the course of the audit, it was found that ACTION was continuing to make illegal payments ...
They are not my words; they are the words of the Auditor-General.
Mr Connolly: Under a Liberal Government. During the period of a Liberal Government.
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