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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4671 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The MBA have put up a number of arguments about why they have concerns. They refer to the flow-on argument. They argue that, out of 75,000 employees in the ACT, only 4,100 are in the building and construction industry; therefore, there will be pressure for these conditions to extend to all private sectors. As I said, we do not necessarily think that is such a bad thing; but we do not believe it is necessarily the case because workers are under Federal - - -

Mr De Domenico: How do we pay for it, though?

MS TUCKER: Mr De Domenico interjects, "How do we pay for it?". If you do not have a system that can be self-supporting in all its ways, then your system is failing. If the Liberal ideology is producing the situation where we actually hear the argument that no-one will be able to afford to buy a house in our community because we are supporting workers' conditions, what you are saying is that the system will work only if one particular group of players in it carries the cost unfairly. You obviously have not thought out this economic theory at all if you say that is the only way it can work; that consumers will be able to benefit only if other people in the cycle suffer.

As I was saying, there is not necessarily going to be pressure for these conditions to extend to all private sectors. There are workers in the ACT who are under Federal awards. In South Australia, workers under Federal awards outside the construction industry have not had these conditions flow on to them. Workers under Federal awards in the construction industry have had a special exemption. This reinforces the argument that the construction industry is treated as a special case.

There are also concerns from the MBA about the issue of portability. South Australia has worked out a mechanism for enabling portability which does not appear to present any particular administrative difficulties. They are also concerned that the Long Service Leave Fund cannot sustain the increase. That is basically because the Government wants to see a further reduction in the rate of employer contribution. The employer contribution is currently at one per cent. Members would remember that it was reduced from 2.5 per cent in 1994, I understand, by the then Opposition and Independents. Basically, there is a large surplus of nearly $20m in the fund. We accept that eventually there may need to be an increase in the employer contribution.

Once again, it is a broad question; it is a question of the Government saying, "We are going to hand over responsibility to the private sector. We believe in smaller government. The private sector will look after it". But if the Government itself does not take on the responsibility - and this is the whole argument that we have had about community service obligations and competition policy, at the Estimates Committee hearings and so on - the Government's fundamental and essential responsibilities are also apparently being handed over to the private sector. We have this argument that the private sector cannot afford it. The Government subsidises the private sector. We have had discussions about that in recent times here. You are subsidising the business sector and the private sector because you have this faith that there will be all this flow-on. At the same time, you say, "Do not ask them to take responsibility for training. We will not do that very much either because we believe in small government".

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