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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 11 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 2921 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The actual wording of the MPI is that the Government should change its approach to enterprise bargaining. I will finish by quoting from a couple of letters. One is from the TWU to Mr Berry, interestingly, as the Minister involved at the time. It was dated 1 November 1993. The TWU wrote to Mr Berry:

The Transport Workers Union of Australia has long been concerned about the bureaucratic nature of enterprise bargaining within the Australian Capital Territory Government Service. The processes set in place for the achievement of productivity, efficiency and resultant wage outcomes are cumbersome, time consuming and relegate the pace of reform to that of the slowest participant.

So much for a really good approach from the previous Government! Mr Schulz, not a well-known Liberal, by the way, went on:

It is understandable then that our membership are feeling frustrated at being tied to the current processes -

which he thinks are not any good -

which are limiting both their wage outcomes and the ACT Government's pursuit of an efficient public sector.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the industrial relations approach that we inherited! Then we have a letter of 3 December 1993 from the AMEU, this time to the Chief Minister at the time, Rosemary Follett. This one says:

The inability at your office and your department to deal with "Productivity Bargaining" as opposed to making the Trade Union Movement responsible and accountable for "Budget outcomes" displays a degree of incompetence rarely seen in any other area the AMEU operates in.

Again, not exactly a ringing endorsement of the industrial relations situation that we inherited! Yes, we have changed it; yes, we are more proactive; yes, we are trying to get an enterprise agreement here. I am proud of that, because that does not sound like the unions thought much of the old deal.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table an article from the Canberra Times which goes to the appointment of Mr Houlihan as a consultant. It says that he had been retained by the office of the Chief Minister, Kate Carnell.

Leave granted.

MR SPEAKER: The discussion is concluded.

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