Page 3345 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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he is doing or what he has done to make it so. He continues to talk - and he did again today - about what he will do. Maybe at some time in the future he will do something to fix the situation. I think we are entitled to ask and the community is entitled to ask when.
A few weeks ago I asked Mr Connolly a couple of questions on notice about what he had done to assist the development of the private sector - that was the general thrust of my questions - something which this Government pays lip-service to. He wrote to me after a lapse of some weeks and he said, "It is a matter of public record". That was his answer to my question. I could not find anything on the public record, Madam Speaker, and that is why I asked him the question in the first place.
Mr De Domenico: Was it Mr Connolly or Mr Berry?
MR KAINE: It was Mr Connolly. Mr Connolly is learning bad habits. I could not find anything on the public record, so I asked him the question, and that is what he tells me. But of course, like with Mr Berry, his answer simply avoids the question. That is the name of the game. Do not address the question; just avoid it. That is exactly what Mr Berry has been doing today on the question of industrial relations.
Madam Speaker, this Government has lost its credibility, if it ever had any. It is copping out. It has lost its plot - again, if it ever had one. Its stand on industrial relations goes to the very heart of what the Labor Party is about these days. It runs agendas that are more to do with dividing Australians than bringing them together. Hence the public debate about republicanism. Do not let us deal with the industrial relations questions; do not let us look at the economy. Let us get a fight going about whether we want to be a republic or not. That is what they are on about.
The Government does not like the notion that people can think for themselves. Union bosses have to tell them what to think and what they must say. If they do not toe the line, they are in a good deal of trouble. This Government supports that line. This Government supports that approach from the trade unions. The days of this kind of dictatorial approach are over, and they had better get themselves into the twentieth century and ready for the twenty-first century, because the community is not going to accept that approach any more. Employers and employees having the option to sit down and work out their own arrangements is the way we are going. Even Mr Berry concedes that, although he tries to make some artificial distinction between their policy and ours. In fact, they are identical in that respect.
Mr Berry talked about the Liberals destroying the standard of living of the workers. Mr Berry must be the only person left in Australia who has not yet realised that we have been living beyond our means for years in this country and that we have to scale down and accept a standard of living that is lower than we have had. But Mr Berry is not going to concede that. He is going to support the unions in squeezing yet more privilege out of our society while the rest of society and the economy are going backwards like a fast train. He is going to squeeze more out of it through the trade unions and keep trade union officials happy. That is the name of the game.
Mr De Domenico: Not the unemployed.
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