Page 3830 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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adopted then; but it is the view that he must adopt now because he has supported Jeff Kennett's initiatives and that, in terms of the Workcare reform in Victoria, is a central part of that process. Absolutely outrageous, you call it, Mr De Domenico. You are dead right. It is so outrageous that every single worker in Canberra should rise and say, "We are not prepared to let you do it". Not only should they not be prepared to let you, as the possible alternative government, do it; they should rise and say to Dr John and honest John, "We are not going to let you do it either". I will defend, while ever there is breath in my body, their right to do that.
Mr De Domenico: Madam Speaker, I seek leave to - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Yes, Mr De Domenico, leave is granted.
Mr De Domenico: I will do it after the MPI, if I may.
MADAM SPEAKER: Of course you may, Mr De Domenico.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.15): Madam Speaker, I think everybody in this Territory knows how irresponsible it was to have the ACT Government support a piece of political action in the ACT which cost employers of the Territory, employers who are so hard pressed at the present time to provide the very jobs the Chief Minister spoke about a little while ago in question time. She knows, of course, that those jobs are very fragile. Those jobs are very much at risk.
The Chief Minister supported, and her Government supported, that strike action, that industrial action, that political action by members of the trade union movement last Monday in the Territory, and she knows that that cost the Territory. The people in this Territory themselves resent the fact that this Government contributed to that disruption when no interest of the ACT was involved. This was a matter purely between the Victorian Government and its workers, yet this Government decided that it was going to buy into it. Madam Speaker, that is an irresponsible point of view to take. If this Government believes that it can take that kind of action on other issues, people will be justifiably outraged. It has no more got away with it on this occasion than it will on other occasions about, for example, East Timor, South Africa or whatever it might be.
The action taken by the trade union movement isolated it badly in the Australian community last week. It was action that was not supported by the majority of Australians, or even for that matter by the majority of Australian governments. Mr De Domenico made it very clear that the decision taken by this Government to go out on a limb and support that irresponsible political activity and to cost employers of the Territory so much money - hundreds of thousands of dollars, quite clearly - was nothing more than an act of irresponsibility which was not shared and was not supported by other Australian governments.
Mr Kaine: It was not shared by the Chief Minister.
MR HUMPHRIES: It was not shared even perhaps by the Chief Minister. Where was she last Monday? She could not be bothered to go along and support her own colleagues when they made this march. It was too partisan to be seen there. What a load of baloney! If it was too partisan for the Chief Minister, why were the other Ministers and the other members there? Madam Speaker, Bob Carr is not a man I agree with very often, but he did have something very positive to say about this matter last week. He said quite simply that it was wrong.
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