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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1307 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Whether companies such as CRA like it or not, the union movement has performed an important part in that process. Whether the Liberal Party likes it or not, the union movement will continue to do that. When they come out with a whole diatribe on the issue of unfair dismissal, claiming that, if they weaken the unfair dismissal laws, more people will employ workers, that is a whole host of rubbish. Are you saying to us that they will take on workers because they are easier to sack? What a stupid suggestion!

The fact of the matter is that the unfair dismissal laws in this country have become necessary because of the growing importance of job security, whatever you say about the rhetoric. For people from a non-English-speaking background particularly, strong unfair dismissal laws are important. They are also important in those areas where there is unskilled labour or transient labour, and it is most important that they be maintained. The nonsense about the cause of unemployment having something to do with unfair dismissal laws was a fairy tale. Those who try to continue with that argument, Mr Speaker, earn no respect, because it has no basis in logic. It is merely a fairy tale.

Mr Speaker, what we have heard from this Minister opposite is his fascination with the H.R. Nicholls style of industrial relations, the style that CRA has adopted - the same CRA that was given a $11m handout by this Government opposite. Mr Speaker, nobody can afford to sit idly by and allow these sorts of things to occur without some sort of comment. I suspect that we are heading into a period of industrial relations which we will not welcome, if Mr Howard has his way. Let us not forget that Mr Howard has not changed. He is still the same person as he was in the days of Malcolm Fraser. There has not been a single change.

Mr De Domenico: Have a look at what the Australian people thought of him.

MR BERRY: The Australian people were hoodwinked. Mr Speaker, I think these policies of the Federal Liberal Government which have been endorsed, I suspect, by the Government opposite will begin a period of great difficulty for workers in this country, and they must be resisted.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.15): Mr Berry used the word "troglodyte". "Troglodyte" implies to me someone who lived a long time ago, in an age when people dwelt in caves. If ever that description was apposite to the man using it, that man has to be Mr Berry. A man who goes to Cuba for his holidays is here lecturing us about being up with the real world, about living in an age when we can deal with modern problems. Mr Speaker, Mr Berry and his colleagues - Mr Berry is running away now, as he always does when he gets attacked - are the only people in Australia, and let us be clear about this, who believe the rhetoric we have just heard. When I say "the only people", I do not mean compared with just other governments. Even Labor oppositions around the country do not believe that rhetoric anymore.

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