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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2143 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

This goes back to the budget, because this Carnell Government promised that it would be an open and consultative government with all and sundry. I would expect that that would include the union movement, to one extent or another, in the industrial outcomes which were being adopted by the Government - that is, the budget. It seems that the Government has decided to adopt its ideological budget and it expects the unions to toe the bottom line. Obviously, they are not going to be interested in that where it affects their membership and the benefits which flow to them. I am not surprised that the unions have thrown out the first offer to them, which attempted to break it down into what have been described as 120 agencies for agency bargains. Obviously, the unions see that as an unacceptable position. It is on the way to the Jeff Kennett style of individual contracts.

Mr De Domenico could not make a speech about these issues unless he poured a bucket or two on the Labor Party. I will be brief. Mr De Domenico's qualifications include having a successful wrongful dismissal case against him. If that is the sort of qualification you have to have in the Liberal Party to get to be Industrial Relations Minister, it tells you all you need to know about the Government's approach on this. The all-of-government approach was an ALP initiative in the ACT which worked, in my view, fairly successfully. There is always a bit of rough and tumble in industrial relations, whoever happens to have the reins, but the all-of-government approach was received fairly well by the union movement, so much so that they want to try it again. I think it is a reasonable approach for them to take. Now it is up to the Government to take a responsible stand and deal with the unions in relation to this issue, instead of dying in a ditch over the agency bargaining approach that it has decided upon.

This motion will cause the Government to go to single agency bargaining, excluding Totalcare and ACTEW, and that will speed up the approach. Already 10 weeks or so have been lost because of a poorly thought through offer. We are now in a position where something has to be done to ensure that the Government gets on with the job of dealing with these unions in an enterprise bargaining environment which is acceptable to all the players. The Government, I think, is starting to play ideological bottom lines and I think it is about time that stopped. This motion will pull that up straightaway. It will cut out all that nonsense and get you around the bargaining table in order that you can come up with agreements which will stick and which will deliver properly negotiated outcomes.

Outcomes which are hammered through will not stick, and that is the problem that this Government does not seem to be able to recognise. The Government has set out to reduce the size of the agency to a level which weakens the arm of those workers out there on the job, as I have said a couple of times. The union has set out to put its strongest position in relation to a single agency bargain. I have some sympathy with that because I understand that they will be dealing with this ideologically driven Government - there is no question about that - which is all about bottom lines. Mrs Carnell has made no secret of that. She has no commitment to services, as we have seen by the proposed sell-off of important public assets. The sale of those which remain is opposed by the majority of the community. The Labor Party has discussed this with the secretary of the Trades and Labour Council. It is a position that the Labour Council has agreed to, and the Labor Opposition will therefore support the motion which is before the chamber.

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