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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 659 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the Labor Party have conducted this debate not so much in terms of the cost, which is what the matter of public importance is purported to be about. As usual, they focused their attention on Kate Carnell and said, "See what a terrible job you did". They did not prove the point that their matter of public importance was allegedly set out to prove anyway. They take up the old rhetoric of the 1950s, of bosses knocking off the workers, and all this sort of stuff. In fact there was none of that at all. If you listen to the Labor Party, that is what we are still doing - the bosses are still bashing the workers. I noticed some reference made to Bill Kelty. I am not sure, but I think they probably did not bring him in here because even they did not want World War III starting in the ACT. They left him out of it.

What really was this dispute about? It was not the case of the Industrial Revolution days with the bosses versus the workers. It was a dispute between the ACT Government as an employer and the people who work for it. You have to substitute for the ACT Government the people of the ACT, because the ACT Government is here for no other reason than to represent them. The dispute, as far as I saw it, was about protecting the interests of the community. Who could honestly come forward and ask for a 141/2 per cent pay rise in today's world and expect to be taken seriously; expect to have people say, "Yes, we know that they are looking after our interests as the ACT community. That is what this is all about. They are looking after our interests, nobody else's."? When you get into a debate between the bosses and the workers, which is what the Labor Party has tried to turn this into, you leave out a lot of people. You leave out all those people who need to use the buses every day to get to work. You leave out all the people who need to get access to parking spaces to go about their normal business in this city. You leave out the people who need to go into hospital and have a major operation. You leave out the people who, at the end of the day, foot the bill.

I submit that much of the debate about productivity trade-offs and the like has gone beyond the realm of possibility. I think, Mr Speaker, that for 15 years now people have been getting pay rises on the basis of improved productivity. There comes a point in time when there are no more productivity gains to be squeezed out of the system. I understand full well why the trade unions went in boots and all and said that they want full budget-funded pay rises. They did it because they know that they cannot deliver the productivity gains. They know because they have had experiences over the last couple of years. Where, for example, are the productivity gains that were supposed to be generated in the health system as a result of the 1995 budget? They have not been delivered because they are probably not there to be delivered. From the trade union viewpoint, I can understand why they did not want to get into productivity trade-offs. They believe, I suspect, that they cannot deliver them anymore.

Mr Speaker, I believe that this is another of those pointless debates. It has been muddied by the old "bosses versus the workers" rhetoric. I submit that Mrs Carnell, whether you like her style or not, had only one objective in mind, and that was to protect the interests of the ACT community who, at the end of the day, are the people who are going to pay. I believe that she has done pretty well up to this point.

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