Page 2374 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.47): The Government opposes Mrs Carnell's circulated amendment, Madam Speaker. The fact of the matter is that a joint council is currently provided for in legislation, in the Public Service Act, and I believe that it would be extremely remiss for our own public service legislation not to contain such a provision. I have made a commitment that our public servants will not be disadvantaged by this change. I believe that to delete any reference to the joint council would be to their disadvantage.
The joint council is the peak body for consultation between unions and management. Madam Speaker, had Mrs Carnell ever sought any briefing on the role of the joint council, I am sure that it would have been forthcoming. Its role is to discuss major policy matters that affect the employees of the public service. Those policy matters can be very broad; for example, part-time employment or people working in remote localities and the kinds of provisions that need to be made for them. Other broad issues that it might be appropriate for the joint council to consider are the provisions for workers with family responsibilities and what might flow from Australia's ratification of that ILO convention.
Mrs Carnell: But it does not say any of that. It has no functions.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I hear Mrs Carnell interjecting that the legislation should spell all that out. What nonsense! Madam Speaker, this is just an anti-union move by the Liberals, I am afraid. They wanted to deny the unions the results of the consultative process by not making the change to this clause that the Government was proposing. The fact of the matter is that if we were to have a Liberal government they would probably seek to delete this clause entirely. But we have a Labor government, and I will not agree to that - not now and not ever.
MR MOORE (4.49): Madam Speaker, I am certainly not anti-union at all. I think this matter can be dealt with administratively. When this clause is read in conjunction with subclause 253(5), where the Bill specifically attempts to ensure that disallowance of management standards cannot be moved, it leaves great freedom for the establishment of a joint union-management council which the Assembly simply has no say over whatsoever. Madam Speaker, it seems to me that if it is going to be an administrative matter it should be dealt with as an administrative matter. It is for those reasons that I shall be supporting the amendment of Mrs Carnell.
MADAM SPEAKER: It is the opposition of Mrs Carnell. There is no amendment before us.
MR MOORE: I shall be opposing the clause.
MR KAINE (4.50): I thought I made it clear when I spoke earlier that I took no exception to the original provision because I had no objection to the unions being involved in management decision making. When the Chief Minister gets up and says that we are anti-union, it is codswallop. It is a very interesting comment from a Chief Minister against whose work most of the unions in the town are currently imposing bans. She has the effrontery to stand up and say that we are anti-union. There is clearly no substance whatsoever to that.
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