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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2288 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

One of the important issues is the question of who should be on the board. Mr Wood's amendments make it quite clear that they are involved with the staff of the TAB; but, of course, the TAB also has agents, and they in turn have staff who are just as vitally involved in it. I think, although I am not 100 per cent positive, that the agents and their staff would outnumber the staff who are permanently employed by the TAB. If that is the case there would be just as strong an argument to say that they ought to have the same representation. Similarly, having taken that move, there may well be a good argument to say that the racing club, which has a vital interest in what is going on in the TAB, also ought to be involved; and then perhaps the harness club and the greyhound club; and so it goes on. In the end this is the factor that has influenced me most. Therefore, if we stand back and say, "Well, what is in the best community interests?", I can see - - -

Ms McRae: Industrial democracy is.

MR MOORE: Ms McRae says, "Industrial democracy". I think that has an important place when we talk about this issue, which is why I said it has not been an easy decision for me. Decisions that are black and white, even when everybody else thinks I am wrong, I think, are easy decisions to make. The ones where there are very good arguments on both sides are the difficult decisions. In this case, Mr Speaker, having taken those things into consideration, having also taken into consideration the community interest in the TAB, the community interest of some $5m-plus each year that comes to our coffers through the TAB, apart from payroll tax and other taxes, and the interests of the punters within the ACT, finally I have fallen down on the line of opposing these amendments and supporting the Government's position.

MR DE DOMENICO (Minister for Urban Services and Minister for Business, Employment and Tourism) (1.00): The Government also will be opposing Mr Wood's amendments. I do not intend to keep the Assembly much longer. I think Mr Moore quite adequately outlined a lot of the reasons why the Government will not be supporting these amendments. There is one area that I would like to talk about though, and that is what the amendments say. The amendments proposed are not sympathetic to all staff, as Mr Moore says, even all staff working for the TAB. This once again is the Labor Party operating as a vested interest group. The effect is that the proposed staff director will only be a union member.

Mr Moore: That is not exactly industrial democracy, is it?

MR DE DOMENICO: No, it is not exactly industrial democracy. If you read the amendments carefully, there is to be a meeting to elect a staff director. All staff can attend the meeting but only union members are permitted to vote. How representative is that? You can attend the meeting but you can vote only if you are a union representative. The chair of the meeting to elect the staff member may be a union organiser but not necessarily a staff member. This can be interpreted as being a preferred position for the union. Unionists can vote at any time to remove the staff director from the board. Given a situation, Mr Speaker, where board members are bound by confidentiality but the staff director does not inform union cronies, the union has the power to remove this person as the staff director and to put on a member that will betray board confidences.

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