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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 2107 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

We want this Assembly to acknowledge that bottom line financial results are not the sole determinant of successful performance. Another determinant of successful performance is whether or not people who live in the extremities, such as Gungahlin and South Tuggeranong, have access to services to stop their social isolation, and often they do not. What I am saying, members and Mr Speaker, is that there are other determinants of successful performance, but we do not see evidence at the moment of anything but the bottom line one. We need to recognise that we do have a community service obligation and that that does not come without a cost. We need to recognise that where, interstate, these services have been provided by the private sector, they have not always been provided particularly well. I quoted earlier, Mr Speaker, the example of the western suburbs of Melbourne where a transport company abandoned those suburbs.

We are talking about the industrial negotiations exercise being done in good faith, yet this is being done while we are having a review into the school bus services. Mr Rugendyke has mentioned to me on a couple of occasions some of the concerns he has had about the school bus services, and we talk about such things as the transport of disabled students, also at this stage by ACTION. Yet, while we are reviewing the school bus services, this Government is seeking to tender out the management of those processes. It just seems inconsistent to me, Mr Speaker.

A lot has been said today about the due process of industrial negotiation. I believe that the industrial behaviour which has gone on until now has not been accepted. We need to understand and appreciate that in any industrial bargaining issue you have ambit claims. That is why some of the wildest claims that you could ever imagine pop up in the first instance.

Mr Rugendyke: Not at the end of the negotiation though.

MR HARGREAVES: That is the very point, Mr Speaker. You do not get them at the end, but you do get them all along the way. Anyone who has any experience in this sort of thing will know that they pop up all along the way. You get to a point where one of the parties rejects it out of hand and says no. The proper forum then to have that silly one rejected and thrown away, Mr Speaker, is the Industrial Relations Commission. That is the final umpire. We have all accepted that as the process. That has been done Australia-wide. The people who do not accept this as a process are people like Peter Reith. That is the way in which the thing goes, because at least there is integrity of the process.

At this stage of the game I question the integrity of this process and I will give you a couple of pieces of evidence for saying that. Firstly, we have expressions of interest being sought whilst the ACTION management are presenting the Government's case to the Transport Workers Union and supposedly negotiating in good faith, knowing full well that they themselves are about to be tendered out. I cannot see for the life of me how the integrity of the process can exist when we have servants of the Government arguing the case and at the same time that very same Government is inviting expressions of interest in their very own positions.

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