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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3236 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

The community sector is an important part of the economy. One indicator of the health of a community is how we look after the most vulnerable people in the community. It is how they are enabled to participate in the community and enjoy a good quality of life. If we continue to devalue the community sector, if we continue not to give award wages and proper working conditions to the workers in the area, we are saying that we do not care about the most vulnerable in our community. I think we need to look at what we are saying in ignoring award wages in this area.

The Government, by not supporting the changes - Mr Kaine suggested that they have not actually opposed them straight out - by default are cutting community services because they are forcing community organisations not to pay fair wages, although those who recognise the skill and expertise of workers pay proper wages. Where do they find the cuts? Do they cut back on service? That is what happens. When they say they have to introduce efficiencies, what happens to the fixed costs of any organisation? What efficiencies can you get with rent? What efficiencies can you get with insurance costs? Are insurance companies offering efficiencies as well? It is a failure to recognise the way the whole industry works to suggest that if you introduce efficiencies all will be resolved and there will be tons of money all around the place. That is not the reality. The reality is that fixed costs have continued to go up and have left community organisations in the dilemma of working out how they can fairly pay their workers in recognition of their skills and the type of work they do.

There seems to be a failure on the part of this Government to understand that crises and other problems do not always happen between nine and five; that consideration has to be given to the work that is done out of the normal nine to five working hours. There were many disparaging comments from the Government about Streetlink because they were not working out of hours, but there has to be recognition of how much additional effort has to be made and how much stress is put on workers in this area by the nature of the work they do and the hours they are expected to work. They talk about increases in salary of up to 10 or 20 per cent. Maybe this is an indication that already the salary levels in this area are below what they should be.

We need to support this motion. It is important for those within the community sector. It recognises the vulnerable within our community, the recipients of services. We are not talking just about salary. We are talking about whether we have a fair and just society.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (3.52): This is an unusual motion, particularly as I understand it was placed on the notice paper yesterday at about lunchtime. As previous speakers have said, this is a bit unusual, taking into account that the SACS issue has been debated in this place before. It has been on the agenda for a couple of years now. Nothing new or unusual has happened, as far as I know. In fact, when we first saw the motion, we thought, "What has happened that we do not know about? What has changed over the last 24 hours to make Mr Berry, all of a sudden, believe that this is a matter of absolute urgency to put on the notice paper for debate today?". We went to our departments that are dealing with matters in this area and said, "What has happened? What earth-shattering new position has somebody taken that makes this a matter of urgency?". The message that came back, as Mr Kaine said, was, "Nothing has changed. The situation is the same. The Government's position is the same as it has been for a number of years now".

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