Page 1496 - Week 05 - Thursday, 12 May 1994
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He was told that he had to leave the site and not do his job, the job he was paid to do, because it was a ticket-only site, and if you cannot produce your ticket you have to leave immediately. Is that what we had in mind when we passed Mr Moore's Bill to outlaw discrimination on the basis of membership or non-membership? Is this not a classic case of what we as a community should not be tolerating any more in this day and age, when the Berlin wall has fallen down, when people are now getting rights in South Africa, and people's rights generally across the world are a matter of international concern? Of course it is.
This is not a matter of abstract interest to the Government because it occurred on an ACT Government site; it occurred on the major ACT Government building project. The ACT Government has an intimate knowledge of and an intimate concern in the smooth running of those affairs; yet it chose to wash its hands of that matter. That is a disgrace, an utter disgrace. If this Government does not have the integrity to enforce the laws of this Territory because it happens to disagree with those laws, perhaps the people of this Territory will have something to say about that at next year's election. That was not the only matter that Mr De Domenico raised. He raised the question of allowing subcontractors onto a site where the CERT scheme operated. Concrete was ripped up because it was poured by a non-union member. I would be concerned about that if I were the Minister for Industrial Relations, but this Minister is not.
Closer to home, Madam Speaker, there is a matter concerning our own chamber. A contractor who was given the job of creating some rather attractive woodwork for this chamber came here to deliver the work he had been paid to do. He arrived in this place and was told, "You are not a member of our union, are you? You have to go away. We are not going to accept your work. We are not going to let you deliver your goods and collect your money because you are not a member of our trade union". That did not happen a thousand miles away. It did not happen in a private sector workplace. It happened here on this site.
Every one of these cases was put to Mr Lamont in the course of this debate, and he chose to ignore every one. He addressed Mr De Domenico in his most patronising tones. He went into ridicule overdrive. He found it very convenient to pour scorn on Mr De Domenico's comments, but he did not address a single one of the points he raised. Did these matters occur or did they not? Are we not entitled to ask that question and get answers? Of course we are.
This Government should be ashamed of the fact that it is prepared to turn a blind eye to blatant breaches of discrimination in this Territory because it has been practised by its allies and its friends. That approach is the kind of approach that I think we have seen in the past to condone many sorts of abuses of different sorts of human rights. In the South Africa which disappeared only a few days ago it was common practice for there to be courts and other tribunals with responsibility for overseeing what security forces did, but occasionally they turned blind eyes to what went on. Mr Berry can look very ashamed about that because he knows what sorts of things went on in South Africa. He had a lot to say about it in the past. Turning a blind eye to what goes on is almost as bad as perpetrating what goes on.
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