Page 4057 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 24 November 1993
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Mr Lamont: I rise on a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is normal practice in this chamber for a member, when speaking, to address the Chair as opposed to the journalists who may be in the chamber.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
MR DE DOMENICO: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am glad that you treated that with the disdain it deserved. This dispute is all about the fact that this gutless Minister opposite is not prepared to go eyeball to eyeball with the AMA and sit down and settle this dispute.
Mr Berry: I did, for three hours.
MR DE DOMENICO: You did not. You have spoken to them once. Mr Humphries did not need to speak with them because we did not get to this situation. It got sorted out. What is happening here is that this Minister is, as I said before, and I will repeat it over and over again, gutless. Send in the troops to do the dirty work and do not do anything yourself. Go on radio, call them parasites, call them what you will; then expect them to turn around and shake your hand the day after and say, "Yes, Mr Berry, you have been so nice to me that I will do whatever you want me to do". That is not the way to handle industrial relations. If you really want to settle this dispute, you go and talk to the AMA today, physically. Go to their office and sit down with them and talk to them.
Mr Berry: Done it.
MR DE DOMENICO: You have not done that. That is not true, and you know that it is not true. But that is what we expect from you. The nurses do not trust you; the doctors do not trust you; the people of the ACT do not trust you. It is no wonder that we find ourselves in the situation we are in now. I think what you should do, if you really want to settle this dispute, is extend the contract, as Mrs Carnell said, up until the end of December and, in the meantime, you personally go and talk to them. Get enough guts to go there and talk to them yourself and settle this dispute. The community, Mr Berry, will not blame the doctors. Ultimately, you have the responsibility as Minister for Health to provide the health facilities. Why do you not stand up and take up your responsibilities? If you cannot, you should be sacked.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.33): Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no question that the doctors' walkout from the public hospital system is putting the ACT in one of the most severe crises we have faced in self-government. The legitimacy of a government attempting to achieve savings across the board is being challenged by an industrial group with one of the most powerful weapons in the industrial armoury at their command. The doctors literally have the power of life and death, and they have withdrawn that in an industrial dispute. No blue-collar union has ever done that in the ACT, but the doctors are prepared to do it.
In the extraordinary mishmash of rhetoric that Mr De Domenico has just spouted, one of the most extraordinary challenges he put to Mr Berry was to say, "Mr Berry, you are gutless". On the contrary, what Mr Berry is doing here is taking an extraordinarily courageous stance, which has the full support of all his colleagues. Mr Humphries, when he was Minister, settled the dispute in much
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