Page 4071 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 24 November 1993
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the opportunity for them to put a counter view to the commission and for the commissioner to say, "I accept your point; this may be a way we can now proceed to resolve it". I have had enough experience within the commission to know that, if one party goes in and says, "Mr Commissioner, or Madam Commissioner, we are implacably opposed to the position of the employer or the position of the union and we believe that this is the way this should be resolved", the commissioner will take that into account in assessing the most appropriate way to resolve the matter in the community interest, and I emphasise that - not in the doctors' interest, not in the Government's interest, but in the community interest.
I can see that Mr De Domenico and the twenty-six-million-dollar man behind him are getting upset when I talk about the community interest. That may be one reason why they do not see the Industrial Relations Commission as the appropriate forum. There is an underlying tenet which the Industrial Relations Commission must take into account in the prevention and settlement of disputes, and that is the community interest. The commission has said time and time again that if the community interest is served by adopting a particular course of action to resolve this dispute the commission is duty bound to adopt it.
If you go along with the doctors saying, "No, no, we do not want you individually to resolve this; we want you to set up another mechanism", if that is agreed, if that is the way it is arbitrated, the Government has said that it will accept that. There has to be a starting point to the end of this dispute. We have passed the beginning, we have passed the middle, and now we are at the end. But we are at the end of this dispute only if the doctors are prepared to accept what I would consider to be the olive branch that has been held out, and that is to use the Industrial Relations Commission as the basis upon which this whole issue is resolved - not only resolved for this part of the dispute, but resolved for all time.
I have found in the past, when dealing with independent contractors who have gone collectively to the commission, that the commission has set up a process for independent contractors as a collective to resolve their outstanding issues. At times that resolution has been achieved through arbitration by a third private arbitrator and not by the commissioner. That is an opportunity the AMA has to argue tomorrow. I hope, Mr Kaine, that you will see the sense in the proposal I have outlined. I believe that you will, and I would suggest that the unanimous support of the chamber for this motion can go some way towards saying to both the community and the doctors that we as an Assembly are concerned enough to see this dispute resolved. Madam Speaker, I reject the amendment of Mr Humphries and commend the motion.
Amendment negatived.
Motion agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 12.30 to 2.30 pm
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