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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 529 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Just in case he thinks I am speaking from an uninformed position, let me say that I have two different legal advices - one from the ACT Government Solicitor, and the other from a private corporation - both of which make the very points that I have been making this morning: We would be putting ourselves in a situation of being in conflict with Federal legislation which supersedes ours if we were stupid enough to pass this Bill today. I table those two legal advices for the Assembly.

Mr Berry seems to be rushing this through today, somehow in the belief that he can change what is likely to happen next Monday. I do not believe that he can change what is likely to happen next Monday, whether or not this legislation passes today. I want to point out again to people in this Assembly that, if we ignore the legal advice we have been given, if we proceed to pass this legislation, there are consequences that Mr Berry has not thought through - none of them good for this community; none of them good for our economy; some of them maybe good for Mr Berry. The umpire was not wrong; Mr Berry is wrong. I submit that he should withdraw his case now before the High Court or the Supreme Court of the ACT tells him he is wrong, after lengthy litigation.

MR MOORE (11.32): Mr Kaine, in his response to the legislation put up by Mr Berry, suggested that this Assembly, through this legislation, will be in some way providing an additional holiday to people in the ACT. I do not think that is the case at all. In fact, my interpretation is that we are in a situation where Mr Berry has put up legislation to prevent a holiday from being taken away from people; that the workers' standard of living is in some way going to be diminished, and that Mr Berry has taken action to prevent that. As a long-time union member, as a member of the Labor Party with the connections Mr Berry has with the unions, of course, he is going to do that; of course, he is going to take action to do what he can to prevent the undermining of workers' conditions.

When we look back at what has happened over the last few years, I suggest that the ancestors of the Mr Berrys of this world would be horrified at what they see in our community at the moment. What has happened to the 40-hour week? I have asked this of many of my friends who work in a whole range of businesses. I know very few of them who work a 40-hour week. I think it has gone. It has been undermined incredibly. We ask ourselves: What has been the benefit of that? Yes, there is probably more income in the community and perhaps there are some other advantages, including some material advantages; but what do we see if we stand back from it and look at when the 40-hour week was won and say, "What is happening"? People get around it in a whole range of ways. Many people carry a second job; perhaps they have a milk run or something like that and they are not having the eight hours' recreation, eight hours' work and eight hours' sleep, which was the perception of the way time should be spent just prior to the Second World War. When we see yet another move to undermine the recreational time that workers have, we have to look at it very carefully. I will not be part of undermining workers' recreational time.

Mr Speaker, in an attempt to convince members that this is a silly idea because Mr Berry's legislation will be illegal, we have two legal opinions. Of course, for every legal opinion that has ever been presented in this house that has an impact on what I am trying to do, I have always been able to get an opposite legal opinion.

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