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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (20 October) . . Page.. 3399 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

everybody. He certainly has not shown that. He has not even tried to argue that. What he has tended to show in this debate, if anything, is that we may have gone too far in the payments that we have made. I would suggest, given the rhetoric used only a few months ago in this place by the Opposition, that it behoves the Government to be cautious about breaking the law and to not - - -

Mr Stanhope: You do it well.

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, yes, I do. That would tend to argue - - -

Mr Stanhope: You do break the law well? You did. You certainly did.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney-General has the call.

MR HUMPHRIES: That would tend to suggest, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that if we are not sure about whether these payments are legal or not we should not make them. Would that not suggest that to you, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? Members of the crossbench and members, would that not be the cautious and prudent course of action to take?

Ms Carnell: Yes.

Mr Rugendyke: Say it again. I missed it, Gary.

MR HUMPHRIES: If we are not clear on whether this breaks the law or not, would it not be better either to get clear advice on the subject or not to make the payments at all?

Mr Rugendyke: I did. I got legal advice.

Ms Carnell: He did, and his advice is the same as ours.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Rugendyke indicates that his advice is consistent with that argument. Mr Berry, in his rhetoric about this matter, has said that we, the Government here, are out to do a Reith in the ACT. We have this draconian legislation; we want to impose it on the workers of the ACT; we want to do a Reith; we want to emulate the activities of Peter Reith in respect of the ACT and hammer the workers into the ground. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the fact that we have paid workers when they have been involved in industrial disputes at the edges of what we would consider to be their core activities or their core duties as workers in the ACT surely demonstrates that we are actually interested in trying to prevent industrial disputes boiling over. We are actually interested in trying to keep industrial disputes on the basis of discussion and consultation rather than go into a process of conflict and confrontation any earlier than need be the case. That is what we have been trying to do.

In that context, I have to say in this place that the Workplace Relations Act has not been very helpful. If it provides that we have no flexibility to continue paying wages at the point where industrial dispute in the terms laid out in the legislation actually

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