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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3206 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

That is downright unfair and should not be tolerated. It is an unfair situation and preys upon the goodwill of workers in the community services sector. They are entitled, as is anybody else, to decent, secure, industry-wide working conditions. Why should they not have them? Is there any reason that they should not have these sorts of industry-wide working conditions?

The reason at this point is that the Liberal Government in the ACT, performing in much the same way as its Federal counterpart, is being silent on the issue of support for this move by the Australian Services Union. This motion calls on the Government to actively support the move for a common rule award for this industry in the ACT. It remedies a very serious situation for those workers who, as I have described earlier, often put their clients and their job's interests before their own entitlements. They are not an industrially active group of workers; in fact, they are quite the contrary because of the person-to-person circumstances in which they work. I think it is improper not to recognise their right to industry-wide working conditions.

Community and charitable organisations struggle to operate under very tight budgets and limited government funding, and working conditions are often peeled back to the minimum. Quite often, too, governments are inclined to offer certain formal public functions to community organisations in the hope that the community organisations will perform those functions cheaper; they offer them the job but not the money. Quite often the community organisations want to address the circumstances of their clients in the community and too often organisations, in effect, coerce their employees to work for unreasonable wages and under unreasonable working conditions. It is not that the community and charitable organisations are an evil group or anything like that; it is just that they have this overriding concern about their clients and the role they play in the community. As a result, workers end up working for less wages and under poorer conditions than they would if they were, for example, employed in the private sector delivering a service or indeed employed in the government sector working for government wages and under government working conditions. It is unfair that they should find themselves in this position.

The Liberal Government here has declined to be involved in the application. What I say to the Government is that it should be involved in the application and should support it. The issue for the Government will arise if community organisations are penalised by increased award obligations. The community organisations do not have many options in front of them. They have to pay the award obligations; they have a given budget; so, it means shedding staff and, of course, shedding services. That brings me to the point that the Government has to commit itself to the provision of funds to supplement those organisations in order that they can pay the appropriate award rate to these people who work very hard in the community.

My motion today will indicate the Assembly's support for the introduction of a common rule award for all social and community service workers in the ACT. That is the key. There is no way that members in this place cannot support the introduction of a common rule award for all social and community service workers in the ACT. It would be improper for us to turn our back on the right of those people to get decent wages and

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