Page 2667 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 October 1992
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not just small business. There are a number of employers who will be covered by this legislation - as an example, those who employ more than 20 employees. In the arguments put forward in this house yesterday on another Bill, they were not regarded necessarily as being small employers. This Bill goes across a wide range of organisations in the ACT. Nevertheless, it covers only 12 per cent of the total work force. There are many reasons why that 12 per cent of the work force is not currently covered. It could be that there are simply no awards in the ACT to which the parental leave provisions could be attached.
Madam Speaker, I digress for a moment, hopefully, to educate at least Mr Stevenson about the way the Industrial Relations Commission works. Here in the ACT, unlike all other States - - -
Mr Berry: Give up on Tony. He will never understand.
MR LAMONT: Yes, I have given up on Tony. Unlike all other States, except for the Northern Territory, we have a provision which allows awards to become common rule awards. That means that, once the award has been determined and negotiated, it can be determined a common rule to apply to everybody covered by the incidence clause of the award. That opportunity is not taken up, however, by all employer organisations and trade unions with coverage in the ACT. It may be that they are named respondent awards, whereby every single employer covered by that award needs to be named in the award. That happens rarely, but it happens. To give an example, and that is all it is, it may be that in one part of the hospitality industry an award may not be a common rule for a particular area, so each employer in that area needs to be covered by name. If somebody starts up or somebody closes down or there is a change within that part of the industry, they are not covered by the award; they are award free.
This Bill proposes to pick up the interests of the employees in those circumstances, to make sure that they have the benefits of the Parental Leave Act extended to them. That is what we are proposing to do - a quite proper position for government to adopt. We have debated in this Assembly over the last three years a whole raft of legislation that applies to a minority within the community, specifically directed to correcting a wrong that exists for a whole host of reasons. It could be that national legislation does not cover a particular issue. That is the role of this Assembly. The role of this Assembly is not only to look after the strong and the powerful but also to look after the weak and the unprotected, and that is what this Bill proposes to do. It says that, where there is a procedure that all employer organisations in Australia have participated in over the last six or eight years - that is, the parental leave provision - and the processes have not picked up that provision here, this Bill will do so.
It cannot be argued that the parental leave provisions in general are not universally supported in this country. The Business Council of Australia, in general and on principle, supports parental leave. The Confederation of Australian Industry, in general and on principle, supports parental leave. The Australian Road Transport Industry Association, of which I have some knowledge, in what is predominantly a male industry, supported parental leave provisions in transport industry awards around this country as long ago as 1985. We are fortunate that in most of our awards here the common rule provisions I alluded to earlier allow for the extension of these award conditions and the decisions of the commission to be extended to all employees.
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