Page 4500 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 1993
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after day one union or another saying, "We no longer want to belong to the central coordinating group because we find the whole process cumbersome, time consuming and perhaps irrelevant". In other words, these negotiations are going nowhere fast.
Industrial relations in the ACT is a mess - there is no doubt about that - and it is time the Industrial Relations Minister sorted things out. It is all well and good for Mr Berry to have gone to this conference of Ministers and applauded what the Federal Government did, but I think Mr Berry may have been the only one who did stand up and applaud. Even his colleagues from Queensland and South Australia, from my recollection, are not too happy. Mr Berry said that he was very proud to be in there batting for what Mr Keating and Mr Brereton had to say. Perhaps he was alone in a phone box; nobody was with him.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.50), in reply: I thank the member for his support for the motion before the chamber, but I have to say that I am not going to put any effort into responding to that broad sachet of spite and vitriol that came from Mr De Domenico. It is just not worth it. It meant nothing. People in this country know and understand that the Federal Labor Government's switched-on policies in industrial relations are causing a great deal of disquiet amongst the right-wingers of the world, Mr De Domenico being one of them. Let us not quarrel for too long. It was a good conference. It was one that will bring worthwhile changes to Australia, and Mr De Domenico, whether he likes it or not, will receive some of the benefits.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
LAW REVIEW PROGRAM
Paper
Debate resumed from 31 March 1993, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.51): The document tabled by the Minister in March of this year is effectively a compilation of outstanding Law Reform Commission or commission-type recommendations for the ACT or which might be relevant to the ACT. The issues touched on in this paper are issues which, to some degree, are of vital concern to us all in this chamber. Some of the issues have been dealt with recently and some are to be dealt with in the near future by the Assembly. Issues such as the property and affairs of mentally infirm persons and conveyancing law have been under some discussion. Indeed, only today the Assembly received a Bill concerning the unsworn statements of defendants in criminal proceedings. So the issues enumerated in this report remain of some vital concern to the Assembly.
Mr Connolly, in tabling the report, made reference to some of the quainter laws that continue to be on our statute books. I am sure that we are all very gratified to know that it is against the laws of the ACT that chickens and horses should enter bakeries, but perhaps we are not so pleased to know that cats, cattle and geese may still enter those premises with impunity. There are other laws which,
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