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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (20 October) . . Page.. 3345 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

This was additional work that had been loaded on to the bursars. And she goes on in great detail about how this would be unlawful, if we were to force the Government to pay the bursars. Well, all I want is consistency. Why is it not unlawful to pay hundreds of other workers who are involved in industrial disruption in various departments, but it is unlawful to pay bursars? Where is the consistency here? I will tell you why it is unlawful to pay bursars. Because they do not want to pay bursars, because it would be a loss of face for them.

Mr Stefaniak: It is in their duty statement, Wayne; come off it.

MR BERRY: And of course Bill the bursar basher interjects, "It was in their duty statement".

MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, please use the right title for the Minister for Education.

MR BERRY: I reckon that is close enough. Jackboots Bill, would that go all right?

MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, withdraw that remark and use the right title.

MR BERRY: Mr Stefaniak---

MR SPEAKER: You have not withdrawn it.

MR BERRY: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Thank you.

MR BERRY: All that was missing from Minister Stefaniak's attack on the bursars was the balaclava and the dogs. Peter Reith launched into the wharf labourers right across Australia, involving the use of security agents with balaclavas and dogs. We saw all the pictures and the horror of the attack on workers on the wharves, which blew up in his face. It was an attack similar in principle to that of Bill Stefaniak's and this Government's. The only difference with the wharf labourers is that they got every dollar back.

Why was it legal for the wharf labourers to get their money back, but it is too hard to give it to bursars in our school system - 29 nine bursars, 29 low-paid, isolated, middle-aged women, part-time workers in a weak industrial position? Why is it wrong to pay them, but it was okay to pay the wharfies? Why is it wrong to pay the bursars their lost wages when they were involved in a withdrawal of goodwill, when hundreds and hundreds of other ACT workers, who withdrew their goodwill, were paid?

Now, I do not pretend that I am an advocate of Peter Reith's laws. These are terrible, terrible industrial laws. They are meant to grind workers down, and reduce their wages and working conditions. That is what they are intended to do. That is what was intended with the wharfies across Australia. But it failed, it failed abysmally, because the

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