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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 2061 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The community obligation imposed on governments in relation to the provision of services such as public transport to those people that are pushed to the edge - to the frail, to the not so well off, to those that do not have ready access to motor cars - is absolute. This Government is abandoning that principle. There is no doubt that in its reckless pursuit of privatisation it has abandoned its community service obligation to all those people pushed to the edge. So that is an issue that we should debate at greater length. I regret that today we do not have an opportunity to do that.

What we should be doing today, though, is talking about this Government's responsibility to its employees - to its own workers, to the workers of ACTION - through the EBA negotiations. I have heard the Minister, in here and publicly, repeatedly talking at length about the 14 months of fruitless negotiations with ACTION and the TWU. He ignores completely the fact that in February of this year there was major agreement on a whole raft of reforms within ACTION. The Minister glosses over that. The Minister talks about the 14 months of fruitless negotiations, but he does not talk about the major commitment, made by the workers of ACTION and by the TWU in February of this year, to split shifts, to extra part-time workers, to a whole range of significant reforms. The Minister glosses over those.

These were things that were implemented in February this year. There were packages of redundancies taken, there was pain, there was insecurity. I do not know whether the Minister has ever actually visited his workplaces to talk with the workers about the level of job insecurity that is felt by his workers within ACTION. If he had, then he would not be making that sort of asinine comment. Serious negotiations on the EBA began only in April of this year. To talk about 14 months of fruitless negotiations is just not honest and open. It is not the case. Negotiations have not been going on for that long. We come down to this point: How does a union negotiate with the Government? We have this talk about the toing-and-froing - the fact that the TWU have not come forward, that they actually do not have any ideas, that they have gone back on agreements.

The Minister does not even understand the nature of his own work force. We have the drivers, we have the mechanical staff, we have staff in head office. We have a whole range of staff. The TWU does not speak for them all. The drivers do not stand up and speak for the mechanics. They negotiate, they talk, they put things on the table, and then they go away and talk with their own fellow workers - something that the Minister is not inclined to do. Any effective industrial relations negotiation demands absolute integrity. The Minister has made much of Mr Santi's apparent shifting, the fact that Mr Santi says one thing and his workers reject it. The Minister has stood up in this place and said this of Mr Santi. At moments like that, as I sit here and listen to Mr Santi being defamed by the Minister, I really do think we should have some process to allow people such as Mr Santi a right of response in this place. I will do it on his behalf here and now.

Yesterday - and I ask the Minister whether he stands by this - Mr Rugendyke fed the Minister a question on the TWU and Mr Santi. Mr Rugendyke said that he had heard Mr Santi saying that the TWU was willing to continue negotiations with the Government and was in the process of doing so. Mr Rugendyke asked what was the Minister's response to that. The Minister stood up and bagged Mr Santi and the TWU. He stood up and said, "Yes, I have heard those things too". The Minister stood up and said:

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