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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 17 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services and Minister for Industrial Relations) (11.37): Mr Speaker, it is always a delight to follow Mr Berry because there is not really much you can say to make sense of what he said. Let us have a look also at what Ms Follett said and what is the reality of this dispute. Let us assure the community out there that it is all about money.

Ms Follett: You are getting your money easily, are you not? You are the Minister for Industrial Relations and you are hiding in your office.

MR DE DOMENICO: It is all about money. I will take on that interjection from Ms Follett later on perhaps, if I have time, Mr Speaker. This dispute is about the unions wanting a 9 per cent fully funded pay rise. That equates to $27m. That, in terms of the rating situation, means about $225 per household. If the Labor Party wants every household in this community to pay an extra $225 so that we can give a few greedy trade unions 9 per cent, so be it; let this Assembly vote for this censure motion. That would mean that it wants the community to pay for this exorbitant request of a 9 per cent pay rise.

Mrs Carnell: Fully budget funded.

MR DE DOMENICO: Fully budget funded. Let us have a look at that. Say it slowly and think about it. The Government's initial offer was 4.3 per cent. It is now 4.1 because of what the unions have decided to do. The initial offer, by the way, was higher than the inflation rate. The inflation rate was 4.1 per cent. The Government offer, on the table, with most of it fully funded, over 18 months, was 4.3 per cent, which was above the inflation rate. But no, what do the unions want? They want 9 per cent - double the inflation rate. Mrs Carnell talked about the way EBAs are done federally by a Federal Labor government, and the way they have been done in New South Wales under Bob Carr. Wayne Goss - do you remember him? - used to do them the same way in Queensland as well. That is nothing like what the people opposite want us to do.

The people on the other side of this house are still living in industrial relations wilderness years, back in the 1800s. What we are talking about is sitting around a table with some unions and discussing realistically what the community can afford. Nowhere have I heard members opposite in this debate tell us what it would cost the people out there in the community who vote for us if we, this Government, were to cave in and give some members of the trade union movement exactly what they want. That is what this dispute is all about. Do we let the community out there pay, on average, $225 extra per household in order to satisfy the whim of a very few - I stress that - trade union executives? Of course, this Government will not do that, and it cannot do that.

There was a lot said about the fact that this Government was confrontationalist. Mrs Carnell read out that since 3 July 1995 this Government, according to industrial relations principles, had been trying to negotiate a proper EBA with the union movement. We were doing very well until about three or four weeks ago, and, lo and behold, what happened? It was mentioned that it had nothing to do with the fact that it coincided with the announcement of the Federal election. Until about a week ago we did not hear

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