Page 3492 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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MR STEVENSON: I ask a supplementary question. I well understand that that could be done. However, that will not solve the problem that is currently under review. It is well within the capacity of this Assembly or this Government to indicate their concern along these lines. I ask the Minister whether he will do that.
MR WOOD: I take that point, Madam Speaker. It is well within our capacity to pass a motion about famine in Africa or a riot somewhere else.
Mr Stevenson: And you have done it.
MR WOOD: I was about to say, Mr Stevenson, that the Assembly has made comments. I do not know whether we have passed motions, but we have made comments. I do not think this is the appropriate time for me to make a comment on this issue.
Government Service - Voluntary Separation Scheme
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. How many requests for information regarding the voluntary separation scheme has the Government received? Will the Government provide the Assembly with a breakdown of the programs where these requests have come from? If you will not provide this breakdown, why will you not do so?
MS FOLLETT: To take Mr Cornwell's question at its face value, Madam Speaker, I can say that the Government has received no requests, no expressions of interest. Expressions of interest were sought by agencies and were made to agencies. In the strictest sense of the question, the Government has not sought and not had access to that information. However, I can advise the member that, on the advice that I have, there is a large number of expressions of interest. Madam Speaker, given the decision of the Industrial Relations Commission, I do not believe that it is appropriate at all that we go any further with that information. I think it would be both inappropriate and possibly a contempt of the Industrial Relations Commission were I to comply with Mr Cornwell's request.
Industrial Relations System
MRS GRASSBY: My question is directed to the Deputy Chief Minister in his capacity as Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the ACT Government support State government challenges to change to the Commonwealth industrial relations system?
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the question. The short answer is no. The issue concerning the industrial relations system that prevails as between the Commonwealth and the States does not really apply here in the ACT because we are, of course, subject to the Commonwealth system. We do not have the same problems that the States have with their separate industrial relations systems. That has been a good relationship. It has worked well in the interests of industrial relations in the ACT, particularly since 1983 when Federal Labor came to office. In the past States have had some difficulty.
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