Page 529 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 May 1992
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Crane Drivers Dispute
MR DE DOMENICO: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Berry. It is about the current crane drivers dispute. Noting that the dispute has been before the Industrial Relations Commission already, will the Minister now intervene to ensure that the dispute is settled as quickly as possible, thus saving the construction industry many millions of dollars and perhaps some jobs in the ACT?
MR BERRY: Again the Liberals have demonstrated their lack of knowledge about industrial relations, and particularly industrial relations in this town. There is currently an industrial dispute between a union that is concerned with cranes in the ACT and an employer, and it is true to say that if the dispute is to go on at its current level for much longer there will be an effect on the construction industry. But, as Mr De Domenico knows, the best way to settle this industrial dispute is for the parties to settle it between them. It is not for governments to intervene and take the heavy-handed approach in industrial disputes. Unlike the Liberals, we are concerned about lasting, good industrial relations instead of flash in the pan heavy-handedness.
The current dispute is one which concerns me. I understand that officers of my department have offered their assistance. It is a matter so far which ought to be sorted out by the parties: I have said it over and over again. If the parties cannot sort it out, then the goodwill of the Industrial Relations Commission should be called upon to settle the matter. What I would add, Madam Speaker, is that people who are not directly associated with this dispute ought to keep their counsel, because if they do not they will only add to the tension which exists between the parties. You have to allow the parties to try to sort it out for themselves. Making political mileage out of it is not going to help anybody. So, I repeat: Keep your counsel.
Intellectual Disability Services
MS SZUTY: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister for Community Services, Mr Connolly. Minister, in 1989 the member for Canberra, Ros Kelly, held a meeting with representatives of disability services in Canberra to highlight the need for urgent respite and other care facilities for adolescents with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. In the light of recent articles in the Canberra Times, the situation apparently has not improved since that time. Can the Minister explain why there still appears to be a gap in service provision for adolescents with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities and their families, who find themselves coping with and affected by associated behaviour?
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