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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1777 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

That is a curious method of dealing with these sorts of issues, but let us examine the media release. I will show that the Government has no intention whatsoever of standing by the agreement and the offer that it made to the union in the lead-up to the election. This really goes to the issue of propriety, integrity and good standing in the community for this Government. Can this Government be taken at its word? Well, on my reading of this media release it is looking pretty shaky. Let us hear what the Government has to say. I will paraphrase some of this because some of it, as you would expect in a media release, is not entirely useful in the course of this debate. I will table this media release during the debate. The media release from the Chief Minister says this:

What we are talking about here is an orderly, cooperative process of translating the existing EBA provisions into new enterprise agreements. It is simply not a situation where one party can impose something on the other. The key is to achieve negotiated and agreed outcomes that are acceptable to both parties.

I will stop there. The Government promised to put the existing clause in the new agreements. It is very clearly saying in that clause that that is not its considered position at this point. I again point out the apparent dishonesty in the Government's response to the recommendation by Mr Corbell and I - "Agreed in terms of Government's statement of response". In effect, I think they are telling us they disagree, but I will go on:

Mrs Carnell said the Government would ensure that its agencies complied with an overall policy which favoured voluntary redundancies -

note the word "favoured" -

while recognising that EBAs could be negotiated with different outcomes.

So again there is an apparent intent to breach the policy or to breach the promise. In the promise to the unions in the lead-up to the elections, there is no question at all that all EBAs would have the voluntary redundancy provisions in them. But things certainly changed in the press release. I quote:

If agencies are happy to negotiate the continuation of the current provision in some agreements, which requires the agreement of unions before utilising the involuntary redundancy provisions of the RRR Award, then that is fine.

Again, that is offering agencies the opportunity not to do it. It is fine if agencies agree, giving agencies the right of embargo here, not unions or the Government. The media release goes on to say:

If the negotiated outcomes settle on revised access to the RRR Award, which might include the involuntary provision, then that is fine as well ...

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