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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 758 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

parties agreed to undergo arbitration auspiced by the Supreme Court - something, by the way, on which this side of the house when in opposition supported the then Government absolutely. The AMA appealed the Supreme Court decision about the deed in the Federal Court, without success, and VMOs returned to work under the old contract arrangements to await the outcome of the arbitration process.

I assume that everyone in this house would accept that this is a very sorry history of relationships between the Government and the AMA. The arbitration continued throughout 1994, with new contract arrangements being determined in November 1994 and finalised in February 1995. The new contract arrangements were significantly different. They had contract type determined by the employer; they had considerably reduced remuneration rates for sessional work and on-call, and the fee-for-service schedule maintained the status quo; and there were also increased facility fees. I suppose that the question one has to ask is: Has this been translated into a good outcome for the employer, and really what has happened here?

Mr Berry and Mr Connolly, in their pursuit of sessional arrangements at all costs, increased the rates that had been arbitrated. So we get back to this. Mr Berry and Mr Connolly, because they believed - - -

Mr Berry: No, Mr Berry did not. He was not there; remember?

MRS CARNELL: Okay; Mr Connolly. I am sorry. Mr Berry does not want to be part of this now. Mr Berry and Mr Connolly, in their pursuit of sessional arrangements at all costs, increased the rates that had been arbitrated. This brought the sessional rates into line with New South Wales; but these Labor Ministers did not take into account the fact that sessional arrangements were not the best service arrangements in all cases. They did not seem to worry about the fact that their ruthless pursuit of sessional arrangements was, once again, precipitating the Canberra community into another VMO strike, but at the same time lifting the amount of money that had been offered for sessional payments.

This, Mr Speaker, is the legacy of what was handed to me when I came to government last year - a legacy of mismanagement by the Commonwealth and Territory Labor governments.

Mr Wood: You had a balanced health budget.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MRS CARNELL: When I took up government I literally had two months to settle a problem that had been going on for years.

Mr Wood: You had a balanced health budget, I repeat.

MRS CARNELL: We had two months to settle the new contractual arrangements, when we had strikes and when we had all sorts of cases in the High Court.

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