Page 1091 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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Mr Kaine: Will you give us an invitation?
Mr De Domenico: Tell us all about it, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: You can join, but you cannot belong to the other one at the same time. You have to leave it. Trevor can join. Trevor would be welcome, wouldn't he?
Mr Connolly: Trevor would be all right.
MR BERRY: Yes. Mr Deputy Speaker, in understanding the implications of the ACTEW-ETU enterprise agreement and the Government's position in relation to it, it is important to understand some of the history of enterprise bargaining in the ACT. In December 1992 the Australian Industrial Relations Commission certified an enterprise bargain between the ACT Government and 15 unions. It is an agreement that the Government intends to honour. That agreement mirrored an agreement between the Commonwealth Government and relevant unions for the Australian Public Service. If the ACT had not entered into an agreement which mirrored the Commonwealth agreement, the practical effect would have been that the ACT Government Service would have become separate from the wider Australian Public Service. This split would have occurred not as a result of a planned process but almost by accident. That is hardly the ideal way to start Australia's newest public service, I am sure Mr Kaine would agree. Why start off with a split of that order?
In addition to retaining the important links with the Commonwealth Public Service, the enterprise agreement between the ACT Government and these unions provides a framework for enterprise bargaining within the ACT public sector. Mr Deputy Speaker, real and sustainable productivity improvements will be achievable by all agencies that participate in it; but, like all industrial agreements, it requires continuing commitment and goodwill by all parties if these benefits are to be delivered. It is also relevant that the Government is currently in the process of settling some of the details of the way in which productivity bargaining at agency level will occur within the framework of the ACT public sector agreement.
Turning now to the enterprise agreement that has been reached between ACTEW and the ETU, there are several points which need to be made clear. Let me say that the ETU would not get a warm inner glow, given that there has been such support from the Liberal Party in relation to this matter. Fancy being supported by the Liberal Party when they have said such awful things about the trade union movement in the past, unions just like the ETU! During the last election campaign we saw what had been planned for unions just like the ETU. So what a turnaround is the Liberals now supporting the ETU. I am sure that the members of the ETU would be very nervous about that.
Mr Kaine: You want to think about that. We will have the unions on our side at the next election. Think about that.
MR BERRY: No, the memory will not have faded that far. First, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is an agreement between ACTEW and a union which represents about one-third of its work force. In this sense it is hardly an agreement that covers the enterprise as a whole. Secondly, almost all of the remaining employees within ACTEW are in fact covered by the ACT public sector agreement. Therefore, the inconsistencies that exist between the ACTEW-ETU
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