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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 19 ..
MR DE (continuing):
There is no social justice. Once again, it is the greedy whim of a very
few trade union executives, backed by their political masters here, or one does
not know who masters whom. It is all about the politics of the situation.
This Government, let me tell you, will not play politics with this. We will do what is in the best interests of the community. It is not in the best interests of the community to up their rates by $225 a week in order to give some trade unions the satisfaction of saying, "We won. We went in there. We wanted 9 per cent and we got 9 per cent". That is the way industrial relations may have been done under the former Labor Government. It was quite easy then. You just walked in, particularly if there was an election coming up as well. The nurses, for example, walked in to Mr Lamont, the former Minister for Industrial Relations. Mr Lamont did not want to do it; but, on instructions, he gave them what they wanted - whatever they want, give it to them; there is an election coming up; let us not have an argy-bargy. That does not work. That is not the way industrial relations is done.
A lot has been said by Mr Berry as well. It has taken this Government an inordinate amount of time to settle an EBA, but what Mr Berry did not do is tell you how long it took his Government to negotiate the first EBA. How long did it take, Mr Speaker? It took 18 months. It took them 18 months to negotiate their EBA. This Government started in July last year, eight months ago, and it is still negotiating. Negotiations stopped at the door because of the election, we believe. It took them 18 months. They forget that sort of thing because it does not add fuel to their argument.
A lot has been said by Mr Berry about lockouts. Had Mr Berry acquainted himself with the Federal Industrial Relations Act he would have known that, once the union successfully gets going a section 170 notification, the only legal avenue available to anybody other than the unions is to talk about lockouts. Mr Berry should have lobbied his Federal colleagues months and months ago to change the archaic Industrial Relations Act. Let me stress once again that it was not the Government that called on section 170; it was the union. As Mrs Carnell says, that automatically pulls the umpire out of the equation. It prevents the Government from going to the Industrial Relations Commission.
Ironically, when the Government is able to go to the Industrial Relations Commission - the example is the Transport Workers Union matter - what does the Industrial Relations Commission say? Last week it said, "Listen, in good faith you should sit around a table and negotiate". What should the unions do, Mr Speaker? They should consider lifting the bans. That is what the Industrial Relations Commission said. What did the Government do? It obeyed, to the letter, the recommendations of the Industrial Relations Commission. It said to the unions, "We will give you by Friday afternoon a whole set of costings". That was done. We said to the unions, "We will sit down and talk to you in good faith". That was done. We said to the unions, "You have 103 specific bans in place. Would you please, in accordance with what the Industrial Relations Commission said, remove six out of those 103 bans, including the ones that would prevent you from taking kids to the show or to sporting situations?". What a wonderful thing for unions to do - to deny children access to that! That is what the Government asked the unions to do.
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