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In those days, when the committee process was really valued, because it was enormously important, we closely examined this issue of how the Public Sector Management Bill ought to apply. Senior managers from ACTEW wanted to discard it. They were enamoured of this flexibility notion as well. There were not too many workers at the bottom who were particularly in love with it, because they realised that there were considerable protections for them under the Public Sector Management Bill. You just cannot march on people. It is fairly obvious, Mr Speaker, that the nub of the issue is whether workers within ACTEW ought to be provided with the protection which is afforded to them by the Public Sector Management Act or whether that ought to be stripped away. The Bill as proposed strips it away, and what Mr Whitecross sets out to do is to reinstate that protection.

Mr Osborne would recall from his days in Sydney the need for protection of workers. Not everybody had the luxury of such employment conditions as are provided under the Public Sector Management Act, and many of us have seen what happens in areas where employers are not as responsible as they ought to be. Certainly, the removal of the protection which is provided by the Public Sector Management Act would be a major blow to many of the workers within ACTEW. I agree that there are, among the elite levels within ACTEW - - -

Mr De Domenico: What - the plumbers, the electricians?

MR BERRY: No. Within the elite levels in ACTEW there is a view that they ought to be freed of the restrictions which bind them under the Public Sector Management Act, because that would give them more power to manipulate the blue-collar workers and so on within the organisation. From Labor's point of view, we will always stand to ensure that this important piece of legislation, which was developed to protect workers, remains in place where appropriate. I think that fair-minded people would as well. The Government, as I mentioned a little while ago, dribbles honey off the tongue and talks about flexibility and all that sort of rhetoric. It is trying to cover up. It says, “Let us remove the shackles; unload a few workers, reduce their wages and conditions, and it will be more efficient”. That is what “removing the shackles” can quite easily be described as in the model which is proposed by this Government.

Mr De Domenico: You insult workers by saying that.

MR BERRY: No, no.

Mr De Domenico: You do. You are insulting their intelligence.

MR BERRY: Mr De Domenico, that is something that you are not well known for and that I doubt you could identify. You should be a little bit careful about getting into that debate, because we have heard your response in relation to the benefits that flow from ACTEW: “I do not know”. What is more, it seems that you do not care. Neither do you care about the future of workers in the Territory; otherwise, you would not be trying to strip this protection from them. Nobody in this Assembly should support that.

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