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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 13 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

in the past. Mrs Carnell takes great delight in saying that this is Federal Labor Government policy. When was the last time you heard a Federal Labor government describing unionists as stupid, greedy or a bunch of thugs? That is the problem with the Liberals opposite. They are unable to cope with registered organisations which are covered by the Federal Industrial Relations Act. Confrontationalism, of course, has risen to a new height since the beginning of this dispute. They set the tone by appointing on contract Mr Houlihan, a well-known confrontationalist, an H.R. Nicholls Society advocate and all of that sort of stuff; the type that would want to squeeze the unions out of the equation. That is what the Liberals opposite intend to do in the long run.

Mrs Carnell mentioned the unions being forced to establish a bargaining period under the Industrial Relations Act because the Government was not negotiating. Mrs Carnell and the Liberals have made great play of their claim that this was a Federal election issue that was whipped up by the unions in that context. Of course, that is rubbish. It is one of the great lies that have been perpetrated in this whole debate. It was very clear from Mrs Carnell's own chronology that this started in the middle of last year. There was no sign of a Federal election then. What Mrs Carnell has done throughout the whole process is to try to delay and delay, forcing the unions to seek a bargaining period under the Act. They have dragged it out and dragged it out in the context that there is a Federal election to be held on 2 March.

Let us talk about the unprecedented threatened lockout of employees. No government has ever threatened that against its employees. How do you expect employees to respond when you threaten to lock them out? This is the first time that a government has even threatened to do that to its workers. It has never withdrawn the threat, so it is still alive. That threat is hanging over the top of the trade unionists' heads. The Government has never withdrawn the threat. It has not given its negotiators room to move, because ideology has got in the way. As a result, all the industrial relations rules have been broken.

The focus of the Chief Minister has not been on the issues in this dispute. She has never attempted to come to terms with the details. Of course, it is the same focus as we saw coming from the ideology of the Kennett Government and the Court Government. Interestingly enough, the HSUA have been able to strike deals with those particular governments but not with this one, in the context of a Federal election. The image conscious Carnell Government! All of the honeyed words that we have heard here and in the media are focused on simplistic rhetoric.

The Government has never attempted to negotiate truthfully. It has provoked; it has threatened; it has not taken a single conciliatory step. Look at the public record. It is very clear that this Government has been about an ideological struggle between itself and the industrial wing of the labour movement. It has mouthed the rhetoric of the extreme right; it has made the community suffer. They have lost sight of the community. Mrs Carnell complains about the cost of the dispute. She has to wear the responsibility for that because she has provoked the dispute at every step of the way.

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