Page 3511 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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A cornerstone of the Government's approach has been to recognise that enterprise bargaining processes have the capacity to deliver both the restructuring necessary to meet our budget imperatives as well as self-funding productivity based pay rises. Accordingly, Madam Speaker, the Government and unions are working together to establish processes which recognise that the Government has difficult budget targets to achieve if productivity based pay increases are also to be obtained.
Consistent with this strategy, a central coordinating group comprising unions and senior management has been developing a framework within which local bargaining in the ACT public sector will be undertaken. The central coordinating group has been meeting regularly - including earlier today, as I am informed, and on another occasion since the budget - to work through the principles and processes by which restructuring involving productivity considerations will be delivered. It will become apparent to members, as I describe the processes that are now under way, that the framework we are creating for consultation and negotiation with unions in relation to restructuring represents a strategic approach that is designed to deliver targeted change in the workplace. The identification of areas in which such change is needed is not just being left to managers. Restructuring proposals will draw upon the decisions made by the Government in the budget process and will involve further Government decisions where appropriate.
Illustrating the Government's direct involvement in these matters and its commitment to a strategic approach, I wrote to the Trades and Labour Council well before the budget, outlining our overall position in relation to enterprise bargaining. Among other things, I sought a continued commitment by all unions to cooperate in, and facilitate the timely achievement of, the budgetary restructure the Government was obliged to make. I made it clear that the budgetary targets involved would be existing ones, targets announced in the 1993-94 budget itself or additional targets developed through the year. I also stated that, in recognition of the substantial economies that needed to be found before there could be productivity gains which would translate into wage increases, the Government would be willing to allow productivity increases achieved over and above budget targets to count towards improvements for workers as wage supplements or other benefits. My letter also stated a willingness to enter into a new closed agreement in order to give effect to this restructuring for both budgetary and productivity pay purposes.
I realise that the subtleties of this approach may be lost on the members of the Liberal Party. But again I say that this is not a process which is based on rhetoric and words. This is a process which has a strategic thrust. Since well before the budget was brought down, the Government has been working with unions to put in place a strategy that is capable of delivering targeted restructuring in the ACT public sector. Shortly after the budget the Secretary of the Chief Minister's Department again wrote to the Trades and Labour Council. He provided further detail of the Government's intentions, particularly in the light of the measures announced in the budget. Again emphasis was given to the strategy of pursuing concurrently, through common enterprise bargaining processes, the separate objectives of budget related restructuring, including restructuring associated with the voluntary separation scheme, as it was described, and enterprise bargaining designed to bring about self-funded pay outcomes.
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