Page 1421 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
MADAM SPEAKER: Members, I wish to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Mr Pat Donahoe, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. On behalf of the Assembly, I welcome Mr Donahoe.
Sitting suspended from 11.57 am to 2.30 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Enterprise Bargaining - United Firefighters Union
MRS CARNELL: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. On 1 April 1993 you told the Assembly:
We trust that we will be able to work towards an arrangement which will incorporate issues of concern for the ETU in a way that will satisfy it, but in that process we have to ensure that the framework that we had agreed to previously and to which so many unions are committed is not prejudiced.
Minister, would your views be consistent if some other union were involved in a dispute centring on the mirror agreement? Is it not the case that the United Firefighters Union has notified the Industrial Relations Commission of a dispute with the ACT Government? What is the basis of that dispute and what areas of the mirror agreement are being disputed by the union?
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, on my recollection of it, the United Firefighters Union is not part of the framework agreement at this point; but my understanding is that it will be. I have had a brief consultation with the Minister for Urban Services. There has been a national claim by the union.
Mr Connolly: They do that. In every State the same dispute is registered.
MR BERRY: The notification of a dispute is a simple process and it is a procedural matter. It is something that is done in relation to not every claim but an overwhelming number of claims that are put before employers. The process is that you write a letter of demand to the employer and give him a number of days to write back. You then notify the commission of the existence of an industrial dispute on the basis that the employer has not written back to you and agreed. The commission may then find, if the matter comes on, that there is an industrial dispute. That is the simplicity of the process.
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