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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 658 ..

MR DE (continuing):

What this strike is all about, Mr Speaker, is this: They were hoping beyond hope that the Trades and Labour Council here in the ACT could influence, in some way, the result of the Federal election. What happened? In one of the greatest avalanches of all time the people of Australia told Mr Keating and Mr Brereton what they thought about the way the Federal Government was attempting to do things in this country. What happens now? Mr Howard and his Government have a great, enormous mandate from the people of this nation. The first thing they are going to do, Mr Speaker, is this: They are going to have a look at the industrial relations laws and the unfair dismissal legislation to make sure that we give private enterprise and people who want to employ people a better opportunity to do so. That is what the people of Australia gave this Federal Government a mandate to do. What the people of Australia also are saying is that industrial relations practices like centralised bargaining processes adhered to by the Trades and Labour Council of the ACT, and Mr Whitecross, it seems, right now, are archaic, outmoded, out of date and not relevant in today's modern way of doing industrial relations.

Mr Speaker, let me finally say this: Mrs Carnell has, and will continue to have, the full support not only of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, and not only of the people of the ACT, but also of anyone who has been involved in this dispute. All the decisions made have been made with the full support of Cabinet, with Mrs Carnell heading it, because she does it so well, with the full support of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, and, dare I say, in their own hearts, with the support of most members of the party opposite. We certainly have the support of the people of the ACT. We will make sure that we continue enterprise bargaining in the way it ought to be done. We look to those unions who are still negotiating, the four out of the 16, to do the right thing by their members and make sure that the community does not suffer because of ideology which is archaic and old-fashioned, and does not deserve even to be commented on.

MR KAINE (4.26): Mr Whitecross certainly came into the Opposition Leader's job with a bang, did he not? I do not think we need go past the press gallery to see that they are completely overwhelmed - or perhaps underwhelmed - by this so-called matter of public importance. They stayed away in droves. I notice that even the stalwarts from the Labor unions who were in here giving Wayne some support have gone, so they obviously were terribly impressed by this debate.

I suppose that Mr Whitecross next week can go through the Hansard with his scissors and chop out the good bits and mail them off to the trade unions so that he can show how macho he was today. He was not actually very macho here, but no doubt the bits that go to the trade unions will show that he was. Of course, at the Labor Club on Friday night, when he is telling his mates about how he decimated Kate, it will be a good story even though the media was totally uninterested, and so was everybody else. This coming in with a whimper indicates how the new Leader of the Opposition is going to fare in the future - another one of those ineffective debates that add nothing constructive to the subject matter.

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