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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 10 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 2637 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

... to the other staff that work there that they will be offered jobs or retraining in other parts of Health or alternatively redundancy payments.

She has also said:

There are a number of areas in ACT Health at the moment that could very well do with any staff that do not choose to reapply for jobs under the new management. So those people will certainly be looked after.

Mrs Carnell: And that is after "long-term casuals". So do not fib.

MR BERRY: So we have to guess what "long-term casuals" means. It has now developed a meaning, according to Mrs Carnell's interpretation, of 12 months. That is applied after the event. Here we have a group of employees who, really, only want a job with guaranteed hours. They do not want to be disadvantaged by the Government's action. All they want is a guarantee that they will get in the future the hours that they are getting now.

Mrs Carnell: But they do not have guaranteed hours now. That is why they are casuals.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell interjects as if she does not understand what goes on in the workplace, and that is clearly so, because she does not understand how to keep promises. That is why the union has been so upset.

I notice that the union has taken a position, in relation to a response to some of the issues, that they have agreed to withdraw the industrial action. Mrs Carnell, quite misleadingly, partly quoted a letter put forward by the union in relation to this matter in which it outlined its position. Mrs Carnell made a great deal of noise about quoting from this letter, but she failed to read an important paragraph which says this:

Further the members note the continued failure of the Government to adhere to its original commitment to provide all casual staff with access to the same rights enjoyed by permanent staff under the Redeployment and Retirement (Redundancy) Award and resolve to campaign through the members of the Legislative Assembly to have the promise implemented.

I do not mind campaigning for them because, on the face of it, there was a clear promise made to those workers that they were going to be looked after. The normal interpretation of "looked after" means that you are not going to be disadvantaged. Mrs Carnell is squirming on that issue, and so she ought to be, because she has misled them. They are entitled to be angry.

Mrs Carnell: Mr Ingwersen, your ex-staffer, is a bit cross, is he?

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