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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 650 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

the Liberal Party - attempting to facilitate negotiations or discussions with the nurses union. Again, you could not say that this Government was in the business of bringing in people without a knowledge of the ACT or with Liberal Party affiliations.

What we have here is a situation where those opposite hyped up this dispute and made it substantially worse than it would have been; so where is the mismanagement, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? Who mismanaged this dispute and who does not care? We have a very clear position here. Those on this side of the house have taken an approach very much in line with that of the former Federal Labor Government. We have taken an approach that has looked at agency specific and union specific bargaining. We have looked at coming up with a pay increase that the people of Canberra can afford. Certainly, we have ended up with a bill for the people of Canberra that I would have preferred not happen.

If those opposite had cared more about solving this dispute and had not hyped up the whole situation, we may not have lost in the vicinity of $3m in revenue from ACTION, $750,000 from parking fees, $250,000 from waste management, $220,000 from parking infringements, and $160,000 from vehicle inspections. Rounded, that is about $4.7m. Until this dispute finishes we will not know the whole cost. But, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, one thing it has not cost is $27m a year, every year, which is what it would have cost us to go down the path of the initial pay claim from the unions.

Mr Berry: So what will it cost for the 10 per cent?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry asks what it will cost for the 10 per cent. I have outlined already that 7.1 per cent of the 10 per cent is budget funded. Of that, 1.3 per cent a year over the term of the agreement comes from the money that is already in the budget. On top of that we have 0.8 per cent from SES savings. On top of that we have 1.1 per cent, which is incentive payments for things like the triple R award and so on. On top of that 7.1 per cent, it is productivity based, and the productivity measures must be delivered prior to payment.

What we have is agreements that the ACT taxpayer can afford from within the current budget approach. It would appear that at least a significant number of unions realise that the ACT Government approach is not ideological; it is an approach that actually looks after the people in the workplace. We heard some very interesting comments from people like Peter Devine from APESMA, who said on 2CN, "This is being run by a group of people who are not that experienced in industrial relations terms". He was talking about the Trades and Labour Council.

Mr Whitecross: Are you sure that he was not talking about you?

MRS CARNELL: No, he was definitely talking about the Trades and Labour Council. I am very happy for you to ask him. I was very interested to hear at some stages in the dispute that the ACTU was being called in - the big guns. This was going to solve the whole problem. The Government was going to be nailed to the wall. What happened to the ACTU? Why were they sent packing? Was it because they were too sensible, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? Certainly, that is our understanding. The ACTU federally believed that the approach that was being taken was just out of the ballpark.

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