Page 191 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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It is interesting that people opposite talk about "our new industrial relations policy". What does the Liberals' industrial relations policy mean? What does it really mean? It means: Stand them up and knock them down. That is what it means. It does not look after the social interests of the people in Canberra. They are not interested in that. All they want to do is set up a "for sale" sign, have a look for one of their mates who might have a bus company here, or might have a truck company there, and say, "Hello, we can sell this off to them - exactly the same as their ideological colleagues did in New Zealand.
Mr Humphries: It worked pretty well over there.
MR LAMONT: Yes, it worked very well! You are dead right, Mr Humphries. I am pleased that you raised that. It did work very well! It has closed almost entirely the public transport system in New Zealand, exactly the same as it did in England. That is all that their policy, the "privatisation for our mates" philosophy, will deliver. We as a government reject that. The ALP rejects that, Madam Speaker. That is not what we wish to see occur in the ACT.
We stand quite proudly on our record of industrial relations. It is a proper industrial relations policy. It is one of saying that when you determine to do something in an enterprise you should consult with the people who make the wealth of the enterprise, and that is the people who work in it. I have a real problem in addressing these people in a sensible fashion on questions of industrial relations. This might surprise you, Madam Speaker; but this is more to do with Marx than with anything else, and when I say "Marx" I really mean Harpo, Groucho and Chiko Marx because the Liberal policy is the sort of policy you would expect from the three of them.
Getting back to the substance of this issue, this Government has a proud record on all three occasions that it has formed the Government in this Territory. There has been a commitment today from the Minister that we will continue conducting industrial relations in a sound and proper fashion. Yes, there will be times when there are irreconcilable differences between the Government and people who work for them, just as there are at times irreconcilable differences in the private sector between labour and management. But we have a process which sees a reasonable resolution of those difficulties. It is not one of confrontation. It is not one of stand them up and knock them down; it is not one of rip it off and sell it off.
Ms Follett: Cut them off at the knees.
MR LAMONT: That is exactly what their policy is, Madam Chief Minister. We will not allow that to occur while the ALP is in government in the ACT, and we make absolutely no apologies for that.
I would hope, Madam Speaker, in conclusion, that over the next 12 or 18 months we can look across this house with some confidence and actually have an MPI of some substance, not one rehashed out of the bottom of Bill Stefaniak's drawer; something that is of major significance to the people in the ACT; an issue which needs to be put on the agenda and is of some importance, not a rehash, not the ideological claptrap we have heard from across this chamber this afternoon. Madam Speaker, I believe that this MPI should be addressed at congratulating the ALP Government on the basis of its industrial relations policy, and it may be appropriate at the conclusion of the debate that we move that way.
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