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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 1782 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

I think it is extraordinarily important here to get away from the garbage. This is not about Mr Berry and those opposite, with hands on their hearts, trying to protect the Public Service. It is those opposite, with hands on their hearts, trying to protect the CPSU's position in the negotiating approach.

I would have thought that nobody in this place would have said to staff in the ACT Public Service, "You cannot negotiate your own award, even your own EBA, even if you want to". That is what Mr Berry is saying, quite simply, Mr Speaker. This is not about sackings, as I have heard Mr Berry say. This is about allowing agencies to negotiate new EBAs, some of which will, I have no doubt, be with unions, and some of which will be with staff, to ensure that those new EBAs have as much flexibility in outcomes as is possible in the interests of the individual agencies and the staff involved.

The enterprise bargaining process relies, Mr Speaker, on agreed outcomes. That is something else that Mr Berry seems to have forgotten. No party can unilaterally impose a set of conditions on another party. It appears that the only body that Mr Berry thinks should be able to do that is the Assembly; that we should somehow impose an outcome on a negotiation that we are not part of. I think that is pretty ordinary, Mr Speaker.

Mr Berry has to take a step back and look at what is industrial relations today, not what it was 20 years ago. Many of our staff are interested in flexible arrangements. Many of our staff are interested in negotiating their own staff-based EBAs, and we should not impact on that or stand in their way in that area. That is what this motion would do. Quite simply, it would say that all agreements need to be union-negotiated agreements, regardless of what is appropriate or what our staff want.

Mr Speaker, for us to get involved in agency-based negotiation with staff would be inappropriate. I finish by stating quite definitely that the approach of the Government is the same as it always was. We have a preference for voluntary redundancies. In fact, we have never used involuntary redundancies. Agencies are negotiating the new EBAs, not the Government, as you would expect. This approach provides for much more flexibility in outcomes to suit the particular needs of the individual agencies and staff, and the enterprise bargaining process relies, as I said, on agreed outcomes; not on what this Assembly should say, but on what the parties themselves agree to. Mr Speaker, we did not make an election promise that only union-negotiated EBAs would be allowed.

Mr Berry: And I am not asking you to.

MS CARNELL: Yes, you are. You are saying that the unions should have veto on - - -

Mr Berry: No, I did not say that.

MS CARNELL: Well, that is the situation in the current EBA.

Mr Berry: No, no, no, no, no, no; read the clause. Do not try to mislead us.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the current EBA is quite clear. Clause 8 makes it clear, as I understand it, that the triple R award can only be put in place in its entirety when there is union agreement. It is simple.

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