Page 1053 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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MR CONNOLLY: There is an issue running with the Electrical, Electronic and Plumbing and Allied Workers Union in relation to an agreement. As was indicated yesterday by Mr Berry and as I said this morning on the Matthew Abraham show, the Government has taken a decision that enterprise bargains must conform with a global, whole-of-government format, and the arrangement that had been entered into between ACTEW and the union did not conform with that. The Government's intention is to continue talking with the union, through both ACTEW officers and officers of Mr Berry's department, to get a form of agreement which, in effect, preserves the benefits of that agreement but does so in a manner that is consistent with a whole-of-government approach.
I did issue a direction under the Electricity and Water Act. It was a formal direction. All the formal consequences of that will follow. It will be included in the annual report of the authority, which I think is the legal consequence that follows. I know that it was a formal direction under the Act. I cannot tell you whether it was under the section you quoted or not, but it certainly was a formal direction.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question. If that is the case, perhaps you may care to table it. My supplementary question is: Will you now proceed to compensate ACTEW in accordance with subsection 38(1) of the Electricity and Water Act, which you are required to do?
MR CONNOLLY: I am required to do it only if I feel that there is a case for compensation, I think, if you read the section of the Act. As our officials are still working with industrial relations officials and the union, it is highly likely that we will get the most desirable outcome, which is preserving such benefits as there are to the community from the original agreement but doing it in a manner that is consistent with the global agreement. I doubt whether the question of compensation will arise.
Naval Communications Stations
MR LAMONT: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. Can the Chief Minister advise whether there has been any progress in transferring Commonwealth land at Belconnen and Symonston to the ACT for use in the Government's urban renewal program?
MS FOLLETT: I thank Mr Lamont for the question, Madam Speaker. Members will know that early last year the Federal Government indicated that the Belconnen naval communications station in the suburb of Lawson and the Bonshaw communications facility which is associated with the Harman naval station in Symonston would remain in operation until new facilities were built in the Riverina region of New South Wales. Construction of the new station is scheduled to commence in late 1995 and it is planned to be operational in 1999. I was very pleased indeed, Madam Speaker, to read yesterday that the Department of Defence had announced that they had acquired land in the Riverina area, in fact west of Wagga and north of Urana, for $11m, and that the proposed development, together with the closure of the Canberra based facilities, is on schedule.
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