Page 728 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 May 1992
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Interestingly, though, Mr Laurie Carmichael - who in anyone's terms cannot be considered a red-necked, right wing, H.R. Nicholls Society troglodyte - has said some interesting things from time to time. He said that we should be looking at things such as youth wages. He is not alone, obviously, because organisations such as the Open Family Foundation and even the Australian of the Year, Bishop Hollingworth, support concepts such as youth wages and even voluntary national service.
In his ministerial statement, Madam Speaker, Mr Berry said that the Government will be monitoring all sorts of things. Monitoring is good, of course; but when is the ACT Government going to take action? The Government will not take action while the unions are dominating what happens in the industrial relations arena. The time for monitoring, I am suggesting and the Liberal Party is suggesting, is well behind us. We now have to introduce, among other things, appropriate wages regimes. Ironically, Mr Berry mentioned in his statement appropriate wages regimes for workers with disabilities entering the mainstream work force. But what about those unemployed young people who want to enter the work force? What about appropriate wage regimes for them? There was nothing on that.
Mr Berry continued to talk about proposed amendments to the Commonwealth Industrial Relations Act. I note that his colleague Mr Lamont goes one step further, and he assumes that those proposed amendments are in fact already law. We know what the Government knows about industrial relations. We all know that even Senator Cook, for example, is not prepared yet to put those amendments before the Senate, for fear of being done over, so to speak, and for fear of the $1m campaign ready to fire from all the employer groups. So, on the one hand, the Minister says that they are proposed amendments; but another member of the Labor Party says that they are already through. So, there is a lack of understanding there.
Mr Berry also talked about practices to improve the competitiveness of Australian industry. That is a fine statement expressing fine sentiments, and we agree with Mr Berry when he says that. But, once again, we do not see any evidence of anything being done about that. I think it is about time that Mr Berry and the Government realised that we can set up our own industrial relations system. I know that whenever we stand up and say that we are hounded down and we are accused of not knowing anything about industrial relations; but more about that at a later time. I am not going to waste the time of the Assembly now or get into debate about that issue at the moment.
As I said, we have nothing against what Mr Berry has said in his paper; but we certainly want to point out that Mr Berry usually says a lot of things but, I am suggesting, does nothing.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.28), in reply: I am pleased that the Liberals do not have any trouble with the paper, but I have to respond to the accusation that the Labor Party does nothing in industrial relations terms. The Labor Party, of course, has the proudest record of any political party in this country on the issue of industrial relations. It has the proudest record - - -
Mrs Carnell: Of strikes.
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