Page 3831 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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It was wrong of workers to be taking this course of action about a matter outside the jurisdiction of New South Wales, and it was wrong of them not to face up to the new industrial environment and accept that changes have to occur. Of course, in that sense he was speaking for the majority of the labour movement in this country. Ms Follett and her Government do not.
Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot from those opposite about what people think about these developments in Victoria. We have heard that people support the present arrangements and that they do not support Fightback. Mr Berry quoted from various opinion polls. First of all, I do not think Fightback can be all that bad when the Chief Minister herself picks up pieces of it and supports it. The Chief Minister, I understand, went to the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Perth earlier this week and borrowed extensively from Fightback in calling for a reduction in the number of Australian government councils. That is a very prominent part of the Fightback package which I am sure she could not have been unaware of.
Mr Kaine: She recognises quality when she sees it.
MR HUMPHRIES: She knows quality when she sees it. Central to the strategies of the Victorian Government's industrial package and to Fightback is the premise that union power in this country has gone too far. It needs to be wound back and more flexible and responsive industrial agreements and arrangements must be put in place in Australian workplaces. That is what both the Victorian Government strategy and Fightback recognise.
What do people think about the power of trade unions in this country? I have my own poll to quote from, Mr Berry. It is a poll that appeared in this week's Time magazine. It was a poll conducted by the Morgan organisation. It talks about the power of unions as seen by Australians. A poll of 577 Australians conducted very recently found that 57 per cent of Australians believe that the trade unions have been a good thing for Australia, although that figure is now 10 percentage points lower than it was in September 1989. Eighty-seven per cent of Australians believe that union membership should be voluntary. That must include an awful lot of Labor voters. That is a central part of the Fightback package and a central part of the Victorian Government's package. Eighty-seven per cent believe that union membership should be voluntary. Sixty-two per cent of Australians believe that the trade unions have too much power. Twenty-seven per cent only said that they have about the right amount, and 5 per cent said that they should have more. Well, there will always be a looney fringe somewhere. Did you answer a poll from Time magazine, Mr Lamont and Mr Berry? You might have made up the 5 per cent. What about this? Ninety-five per cent of Australians, according to the Morgan poll, believe that strike action should be decided by a vote of union members, not by a decision of union officials.
Mr Berry: That is the way it is done.
MR HUMPHRIES: Too bad. Too bad, Mr Berry. Too bad, Mr Lamont. There goes your power out the window. Here is something central to the Fightback package. Fifty-five per cent of Australians believe that employees should directly negotiate their pay and conditions of work with their employer without union involvement, and 57 per cent believe that employees are capable of directly negotiating their pay and conditions without union involvement. Only 33 per cent believe that they could not.
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