Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 651 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

To finish, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think we should talk about the cost to the ACT community of this whole situation, a situation which Mr Whitecross has tried to suggest is somehow the Government's fault. The Government has not put in place one ban. The Government has achieved a situation where we have, at least for 12 of 16 unions, a pay increase that can be afforded from within our budget capacity. The productivity issues that have been outlined in the various agreements will improve community services, will allow our services to be of better value to the community, and will certainly improve the workplace situation for many of those people. We have agreements with unions such as APESMA which potentially will improve the quality of the people that they have.

Mr Berry: How many members?

Mr Whitecross: How many members is that?

Mr Berry: Eighty-five?

Mr Whitecross: Forty?

MRS CARNELL: I do not think it matters how many members, Mr Whitecross. I think it matters that we have workplaces that are better for the workers - better training, a better focus on the workplace, and a better focus on the client, the customer, the people of Canberra. That is the approach that we have taken.

The other thing I would like to mention before I finish here is the unbelievable approach that has been taken by some union officials, Cath Garvan being one of them. She said on radio, I think just recently, that somehow higher duties allowances had been removed from people for some reason, because my pay and the pay of my chief executive had been interfered with by the union. Certainly, that did happen; but I can guarantee that at no stage were higher duties allowances cut for that particular purpose. I can guarantee that my chief executive never decided not to reinstate higher duties allowances for that purpose. I will table a letter that went to Cath Garvan along those lines.

MR BERRY (4.07): This matter of public importance will clearly focus attention on the failure of Mrs Carnell's leadership in this industrial dispute. I want to start by going to the issue of who was in charge of this dispute. At first it was Mr De Domenico, but early in the proceedings Mrs Carnell worked out that there were a few crisp headlines in this one and it was time for her to take over and grab the headlines. Then there was a litany, a flood of press releases that went throughout this dispute. I have here just under 50 which, I have to say, are peppered with lies and innuendo. These are all press releases that have been issued from Mrs Carnell's office.

I will go through some of the chronology of this dispute. We have to start from Mrs Carnell's 1995 budget. The decision was to cut 3,000 jobs from the ACT public sector. When you tell your work force that there are 3,000 jobs to go and then start to try to negotiate a pay increase on the basis of job cuts, your work force has to be a little bit upset about that. These days, if you have not noticed, job security has become a very important part of industrial negotiations. Then Mrs Carnell hired the controversial union bashing consultant, Mr Houlihan, to advise her on enterprise bargaining.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .