Page 1086 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I have pleasure today in tabling the first annual report from the ACT Discrimination Commissioner. This report covers the first six months of operation of the Human Rights Office, from January to June 1992. The Human Rights Office is run on a cooperative basis with the Federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which means that the office deals not only with complaints under ACT discrimination law but also with complaints lodged under Federal anti-discrimination laws.
As the commissioner points out in her report, much of the period covered by this report was taken up with establishing the office and recruiting permanent staff. However, during the period the commissioner and staff of the office took an active role in developing educational programs to promote the objects of the Act. Education is a key feature of anti-discrimination law in Australia and recent reports from the office reflect their continued involvement in that area. Madam Speaker, I commend the report to the Assembly.
ENTERPRISE AGREEMENT
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr De Domenico proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The Government's failure to ratify an enterprise agreement thus putting electricity supplies in jeopardy.
MR DE DOMENICO (4.27): Madam Speaker, as the night gets longer and my voice gets softer - hopefully, the lights will stay on - I thank you. Madam Speaker, as we conceded during question time, I think the first statement I should make is that we should not be deluding ourselves or kidding ourselves about what this potential termination from time to time of electricity supplies is all about. It is about three things, I believe. The first thing is that it is a demarcation dispute. There is no doubt that there is a demarcation dispute between two unions of two different factions within the labour movement. Secondly, it is about another demarcation dispute between two Ministers from different factions within the Labor Government. Thirdly, it is about the failure of the Chief Minister to intervene in order to prevent the ACT public from being used as political footballs within the internal machinations of ACT politics.
Mr Mike Taylor is no lover of any particular side of politics and is a quite fair observer of industrial relations in this country. He wrote that John Howard deserves some of the credit for the system of enterprise bargaining which has been developed between the Government and the ACTU via the accords mark VI and mark VII. It is arguable, Madam Speaker, that without Mr Howard the pace of the change towards enterprise bargaining would have been much slower. It was Mr Howard who placed enterprise bargaining on the political agenda. I think it was in 1986 or 1987 that he produced a policy for the Liberal Party based on taking industrial relations into the workplace. The policy that he outlined then, Madam Speaker, is not terribly different from the reality of today. In other words, what we are saying is that the ACTU and the Labor Party are not the sole repositories of industrial relations innovation.
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