Page 2844 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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something that is not broken? That is what the Federal Liberals intend to do in order to try to make a cheap political point out of a process. The good thing is that they have not fooled Australian workers. Australian workers are a wake-up to what the Liberals are about. Liberals are about driving down the living standards in this country and disempowering workers in this country, to ensure that their wages and working conditions are reduced permanently.
We do not cut and slash. The scorched earth industrial relations policy, with essential services legislation, fines and sanctions, is supported by the Opposition for people who do not agree with them. They threaten to sack people who do not agree with them. We do not want a return to the Dark Ages or the 1960s and 1970s at the hands of these people who, like the Bourbons and the Sun King, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
This Government consults with unions and employers through the Industrial Relations Advisory Council, which meets quarterly, the Occupational Health and Safety Council and the Workers Compensation Monitoring Committee. Groups represented on these forums include CONFACT, the Master Builders, the Chamber of Manufactures and the Canberra Business Council, as well as the trade union movement; so in the ACT in our consultative processes there is broad involvement of the business sector as well as the trade union movement and government. As a result of Labor Government initiatives through these councils, workers compensation premiums have halved and reported accidents have been reduced by 25 per cent, while employment has increased by 10 per cent and industrial disputation has been halved. Those are the facts, whether you like them or not.
Mr De Domenico: No, they are not.
MR BERRY: You do not like them, I know.
Mr De Domenico: No, you are not right.
MR BERRY: You hate them, but that is the truth. The continuing consultation in those forums has led us to a position where we can be quite proud and, indeed, optimistic about the future of industrial relations in this Territory.
Let us look at the alternative, the nineteenth century, the common law employment that the Liberals envisage a return to - the days of laissez faire; let the worker and the boss negotiate industrial agreements as if they are equal. That is the Liberals' position. The bosses will look after your wages. They will make sure that you are well paid and that you feel comfortable. They will pay for all of the conditions that you want; you will want for nothing. The result from those things was mine disasters, strikes, low wages, low productivity. It got too much even for the Law Lords in the House of Lords in Britain, who began to find ways around common law contracts because of their very unfairness. You people want to go back to the days when the squattocracy was in charge in this country. The common law courts devised artificial ways of making employers responsible for their employees through such concepts as non-delegatable duty, for safe workplaces, workers compensation and other progressive developments. These latest common law contracts aim to turn the clock back to the last century, all because of economic rationalism gone mad.
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