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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1776 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

(2) this Assembly requires the Chief Minister to implement her election commitment in the current round of negotiations.

Mr Speaker, this motion arises from a concern about the enterprise negotiations in the ACT. It is a motion which calls upon the Government to be fair in terms of its promises to the trade union movement, which deals with ACT public servants, to the extent that voluntary redundancies would be the policy of the Carnell Government if it were elected to office. In the course of the Estimates Committee deliberations on this matter, questions were asked of the Chief Minister in relation to it. We proposed to the Chief Minister that she agree to the promise made to the unions in the lead-up to the election. The Chief Minister would only say that the Government's preferred position was voluntary redundancies. The Chief Minister was heard to say it a number of times. In my view that was code for: "If you do not like voluntary redundancies, if you do not volunteer, then you have to face the spectre that they could be compulsory". That is quite inconsistent with the offer that was made to the unions in the lead-up to the elections.

Mr Speaker, in our dissenting report, I and my colleague Mr Corbell recommended that the existing arrangements in relation to redundancy be maintained in all enterprise and workplace arrangements. I will read to the Assembly the existing arrangements. I will not go through the whole principles and objectives which appear in the agreement with the unions, but I will refer to section J which refers to voluntary redundancies. This is the clause which the Chief Minister promised before the last election to implement in the next round of negotiations:

the parties agree to develop ...

I will stop there for a moment. The parties here are the unions and the Government. It is very important to clarify that point. I quote:

the parties agree to develop and implement a streamlined process for voluntary redundancies during the life of the agreement. The process of the RRR Award shall apply. Should the processes as outlined at clause 8 of the Award be reached then further action would require the agreement of the parties.

So, when all else has failed in relation to the matter and no voluntary agreement can be reached, nothing more can be done without the agreement of the parties. That essentially says that either of the parties has a right of embargo over a compulsory redundancy. So, if the union does not want a compulsory redundancy it does not happen, and if the boss does not want one it does not happen.

The Chief Minister, in her response to the Estimates Committee, said this in response to the recommendation in the minority report:

Agreed in terms of Government's statement of response as set out in the media release of 26 August 1998.

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