Page 3334 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! This is not a travelogue. Can we get on with the debate, please?
MR BERRY: Mr Deputy Speaker, this Labor Government will continue to support the Federal Industrial Relations Commission and Industrial Relations Act because they have been designed to improve the standards of workers in the ACT. They have also been designed to fit cooperatively with a program of micro-economic reform across the country. That is why we will continue to follow our approach rather than the alternative which is proposed by the Liberals.
The Liberals, quite clearly - I have said it over and over again, but it needs to be repeated - would have a situation where living standards would fall. They would have a system where workers would lose power in the workplace and not be entitled to protect themselves.
Mr De Domenico: Wrong again.
MR BERRY: Here we go. "Wrong again", he says when I talk about the disempowerment of workers. The Liberals' policy states:
Devolve responsibility for resolving local industrial problems to the workplace. In the first instance it will be the responsibility of employers and employees to resolve their disputes if possible ...
We heard what will happen in Victoria. That will be translated here. If you cannot get agreement you go your own way; that is, if the employer does not agree with the worker, "Nick off".
That is not the approach that will be taken by the Labor Government in the ACT. We will take the conciliatory approach. We endorse the role of the Industrial Relations Commission to settle industrial disputes by way of conciliation and arbitration, because it has served workers in Australia well. It will serve the people of Australia well in the future, because it will ensure that we achieve micro-economic reform. We will work cooperatively with the commission, rather than slagging off at it all the time, trying to take cheap political points and holding up competitors such as those developing countries mentioned by Mr Humphries as examples that Australia should follow. We will not follow that course.
Mr Humphries: No.
MR BERRY: You do hold them up as your international competitors.
Mr Humphries: They are.
MR BERRY: That is right; you put them forward as examples of competitors which we should be able to beat in the marketplace by implementing the industrial relations arrangements which exist in those countries. We will not.
Mr De Domenico: No, we did not say that.
Mr Kaine: We did not say that at all.
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