Page 2444 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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Even Ms Follett's colleague in Western Australia, Premier Carmen Lawrence, the last Labor Premier in Western Australia for a long time after the next election, saw the problem of the cost of labour. What did she do? In her budget she gave payroll tax relief to the private sector. She is not a Liberal Party apparatchik or someone who would vote for this side of the house.
Mr Kaine: We do not have apparatchiks.
MR DE DOMENICO: We do not have them in our party - that is right - as Mr Kaine, my leader, says. Even Carmen Lawrence, the Labor Premier of Western Australia, saw the light. She had the guts to make the right decision, and that was, "Let us give small business and the business community some relief with their costs of labour". What does this Government do? It does nothing.
Mr Kaine and, I am sure, my other colleagues will say other things that the Government could have done. Justice Rae Else-Mitchell reported on whether we are utilising our assets to the best of their ability. The answer to that is no. That report has been stuck in some corner somewhere and is now collecting dust.
Mr Lamont: Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. This is getting a bit repetitious. The Business Council has already said all of this.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Lamont, the relevant standing order on repetition is concerned with whether the member is repeating his or her own arguments, and I do not think that Mr De Domenico is. Please continue, Mr De Domenico.
MR DE DOMENICO: A good try. I know that it hurts, Mr Lamont, but listen. Once again, unlike you, I am not referring to things said by overseas film producers; I am referring to what is said here in Canberra by the Canberra Times.
Recent statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show how weak the ACT Government is, in fact. We have the highest public sector labour costs in Australia, at $40,040, compared to the lowest, which is in - wait for it - Queensland. It is not in a Liberal-led State but in Queensland. The average in Queensland is $31,653, but in the ACT it is $40,040. It is no wonder that it is so difficult to employ people in the ACT when the costs are as exorbitant as that.
If you wanted to create some jobs, why did you not, as I said before, lift the payroll tax threshold from $500,000 to $1m? Why did you not introduce enterprise bargaining? That is a very interesting point, because Mr Lamont stood here and tried to talk down the industrial relations practices enumerated in Fightback. He should read what Senator Peter Cook has had to say from time to time. He is saying things like this: From now on he is looking at any Federal Public Service pay rises being based on productivity, on a workplace bargaining principle.
Mr Cornwell: He is a Labor man, isn't he?
MR DE DOMENICO: Yes. In fact, he was formerly the secretary of the Trades and Labour Council in Western Australia.
Mr Cornwell: Really?
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