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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 26 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

from somewhere. You are the Government. You can just reach in and pull out a few million dollars, or $27m, to fling at the trade union movement", but they cannot explain exactly how. "From consultancies", they say. It does not stack up, I am afraid. The money is not there in consultancies. What about the Acton Peninsula? We have $15m from the Commonwealth to pay for the demolition of buildings on the Acton Peninsula, but if we do not demolish the buildings we will not get the $15m. Mr Speaker, the savings cannot be found. I say to those opposite: If you seriously believe that this is the case, if you want to censure the Government, have the decency and the goodness to say to the people of the Territory how you would fund this pay rise.

MR KAINE (12.08): Mr Speaker, I must say that I am constantly disappointed at the ability of some people in this place to force a debate and then engage in pointless and unproductive debate. The fact is that we have been debating this issue for almost an hour-and-a-half already and at the end of the day, no matter how long it takes, the debate will have added not one jot to solving the matter that is before the public and before the Government. I have heard nothing said yet that suggests that anything could be derived from today's debate that would help the Government solve the problem. Surely, that is what we are here for.

We have a mickey mouse motion brought forward by the Leader of the Opposition which purports to censure two members of the Government for failure to do things. It takes two people, two teams, two sides, to negotiate. I have been listening and reading about the public debate out there. I know no more about it than some others in this place, but I do not believe that all the fault is on the side of the Chief Minister and the Minister for Industrial Relations. If the two sides cannot get together in good faith and negotiate, how can you then censure only one party? So the motion itself is a nonsense. I am not at all satisfied that the trade unions have entered into negotiations in good faith, and that is what we are being asked to censure the Chief Minister and the Minister for Industrial Relations for. I will not be party to that. Let us be clear about it right now.

The Leader of the Opposition, in introducing her motion, which has to do with industrial relations, talked for her full 20 minutes about the budget. She did not mention industrial relations. It was not until her deputy got up and started talking about industrial relations that he made the curious comment that this is an industrial relations matter and not a budgetary matter. He should have had a talk to his party leader before she spoke. She obviously did not see it as an industrial relations matter. I put it to you that it is an industrial relations matter. All that debate about the budget is totally pointless because, within the context of the budget, what the Government is confronted with is a demand from the trade unions, and the core of that demand is for a pay rise. There are other issues; it is not only a pay rise. The only matter for the Government to determine is, firstly, whether that demand is reasonable and whether they should meet it, or any part of it, and, if they should, how they will fund it.

To the extent, as I understand it, that there is a reasonable claim that the trade unions might have put forward for a pay rise, that is fundable in the Government's budget. It is only that part which to me, on the face of it, seems unreasonable that the Government could not fund from their budget. So all this debate about budget priorities and what the Government did wrong in terms of framing the budget, and their mistake in bringing forward a three-year budget with the aim at the end of it of not being in deficit, is totally

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