Page 2371 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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I believe that it is also roughly consistent with what occurs with the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory. They both make legislative provision for a joint council. Madam Speaker, whilst the Commonwealth legislation states that a joint council may be provided for, Commonwealth regulations actually make it mandatory. This provision makes it a formal requirement of the Government to consult regularly with the unions. I consider that it is also best practice as part of the industrial democracy principles, and I therefore commend it to the Assembly.
MR KAINE (4.34): Madam Speaker, it will not come as any surprise to the Chief Minister, I am sure, that I oppose this amendment. I oppose it, Madam Speaker, because I do not believe that legislation should be making something of this kind a statutory requirement. I was prepared to accept the original Bill, which said that the management standards "may make provision", although I come back to the point I made earlier that I do not know what these management standards are. I have not seen them. I do not know who has drafted them. I do not know who is going to endorse them. I do not know what standing they have until they are brought before this Assembly and we can see. It is curious to say that the management standards may do this. I would have thought that, if the Government was really serious about this, first of all it would have said that the commissioner, or some specific person with a responsibility to do so, may do this.
Another interesting thing is that when the Government drafted this Bill "may make provision" was good enough. Now we have this newfound commitment to the Labor cause. It has only just emerged now, suddenly, that we must make it compulsory. Why was it not compulsory when the Bill was first drafted? What happened to the Labor Party's commitment at that point? They had to go and dig it up after a while and put it back into the Bill. I oppose the amendment because I think it is a curious thing. It has nothing to do with the machinery of government; it has nothing to do with the way government works. It has to do purely with what goes on within the organisation and how, if at all, the commissioner - not the Government - talks to people within his organisation. He should be able to do that without making this a statutory requirement. In fact, I know that he has for a long time, so it is not necessary to make it a statutory requirement.
There is another curious thing about this Labor Government's newfound commitment to its principles. In three of the four preceding clauses which we have passed - talking about equal employment opportunity programs, access and equity programs and industrial democracy programs - the wording is "may provide". The Labor Party's commitment to these things did not show up there. On this one issue we suddenly find that it has to be not "may" but "must". I find an inconsistency there. If the Chief Minister sees it as a necessity to make it mandatory to set up this consultative forum at the top level, what has happened to all the other consultative forums further down the system that have been in place for years? Why does she not make it a statutory requirement for them as well? As I say, it is getting curiouser and curiouser, a bit like Alice in Wonderland - or a bit more like Rosemary in Wonderland. I do not know that she understands what this means, or why she is doing it either. I make it clear that the Liberals are prepared to go along with the original Bill, which says that they "may" do this. That is okay. But, if the Chief Minister wants to go that one extra step and say that they must, we oppose it.
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