Page 3342 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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Since we have been in office we have been going about the hard work of achieving micro-economic reform. The Liberals often seem to think that micro-economic reform is some sort of mantra; that you just chant it from time to time and things change. It is not. It is very hard, nitty-gritty work. It involves rolling up your sleeves, getting down to the workplace level and working out lots of little changes. There is no sweeping "this is micro-economic reform" agenda. It is not a sort of five-year plan approach. It is extraordinary that the Liberals at the moment seem to have this dogmatic ideological approach that you have massive changes in work conditions and that is micro-economic reform. That is not the process. It is small changes at the workplace in order to achieve a more competitive workplace and better productivity.
We have been working on that constantly, compared to the approach that the Liberals had when they were in government - the old-fashioned Rip Van Winkle approach of the Liberals of masterly inactivity. Nothing happened; nothing changed. Look at the bus operations. Look at ACTION. Nothing changed, apart from the deficit increasing. We have been in office for 18 months and we delivered $2m in savings last year, we have already achieved $1m in savings this year in relation to the revised scheduling system, the RAN, the new network that came in in July, and we are working to achieve another $1m to get to $4m in two years. That is significant change. That represents runs on the board for this community. We have set ourselves a very ambitious target of $10m, but I am confident that we are going to deliver on that. I am confident that we are going to achieve results.
A question was asked in question time by Mr Cornwell that the Liberals did not seem to want to hear the answer to. It was about what happened with the buses this morning. What happened was that a press release went out which warned travellers that between 9.00 am and 12 noon they could expect disruptions. The meeting itself lasted an hour or so, but the workers took time to go to the meeting place and to get back to the depots.
Mr Lamont: The same thing that occurred under Mr Kaine.
MR CONNOLLY: Of course. So, we had, by agreement with the union, a paid stop-work meeting. I will concede that. It was a paid stop-work meeting, because we have asked that organisation to undergo massive change.
Mr Kaine: So, you are going to pay them every time they go on strike.
MR CONNOLLY: We have already achieved significant change, but to get to that $10m we are going to need to achieve massive change at the workplace and we need to take that workplace along with us. So, it was important that we have a paid stop-work meeting in order to discuss those issues. The outcome of that paid stop-work meeting this morning was very encouraging. The drivers agreed that their nominated representatives would receive a mandate from the drivers to work with government on a micro-economic reform agenda with management. They agreed that they needed to get further details from management. They needed to see more of precisely what we were proposing, they wanted to play a greater role in the decision making and they wanted more consultation. That is fine.
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