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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 2118 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

There has been a protracted series of negotiations. Negotiations have been repeated regularly even throughout September. We can look at the record for September. On 10 September there was a formal meeting between the TWU and ACTION. On 14 September there was a formal meeting between the TWU and ACTION. On 16 September there was a formal meeting between the TWU and ACTION. On Monday, 21 September, Mr Thurston tells the Minister, and the Minister tells the Assembly and the people of Canberra, that he had had no approaches from the TWU. Mr Thurston confirms to the Minister as recently as yesterday that ACTION has received no firm offers from the TWU at all. They were clear, unambiguous and unequivocal statements from Mr Thurston and from the Minister. Now we know that at the time the Minister was insisting that there were no negotiations, no discussion and no firm offer, Mr Thurston was at the table with Mr Santi discussing a firm offer and through that process coming to agreement on as many as 20 of the 22 items in the EBA.

How can that not be firm? How can that not be the basis of a firm offer if, as a result of that process, the TWU and ACTION have come to a basic agreement on up to 20 of the 22 items? There is some fiddling at the edges, but these were firm offers, and these firm offers have resulted in concluded or almost concluded outcomes.

Let us look at some of the non-firm offers that the TWU is supposed to have made at the meeting on Monday which the Minister tried to pretend to us did not happen. The document from Mr Santi to ACTION is couched in terms such as this:

The new network is to be implemented on 30 November 1998. As discussed, there are still some minor adjustments to be ironed out.

We are talking about agreements that the TWU is prepared to make in the context of the EBA negotiations. What do we have? We have had the Minister, at every step, belittling the TWU, belittling the union movement, personally belittling Mr Santi. This is just some classic old union bashing by the Minister because it is the only way he knows. He is determined to stir up strife within the industry. He has an agenda to privatise. He wants a fight with the union. He wants the Canberra community to believe that it is all the union's fault - "Let us blame the union". That is what he does. Yet he had the temerity to stand up here yesterday and tell this house, "We believe negotiations should continue". The saccharine hypocrisy of that. "We believe that negotiations should continue, but I am yet to hear from the TWU", the Minister said. The day before Mr Santi was in deep negotiations with Mr Thurston to iron out almost all the details of the EBA. What does the Minister stand up and tell this place and tell the people of Canberra? He says, "I am yet to hear from the TWU". The negotiations are almost concluded. That is a statement of the Minister's extreme incompetence; an admission of incompetence; that perhaps he does not know what is going on.

The greatest sin here is that he pretends that he rang Mr Thurston and asked Mr Thurston, "Is anything going on? I have heard these comments on the radio. Mr Santi says he wants a negotiated outcome". The Minister says, "I rang Mr Thurston and I asked Mr Thurston, `Does Mr Santi want a negotiated outcome or not?', and Mr Thurston told me, `We have received no offers from the TWU, none at all' ". That is just not true.

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