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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 410 ..

MR BERRY: In the other States. In particular, New South Wales has been regulated. The last piece of legislation was a 1996 piece of legislation, so it is not something that just popped up yesterday. Mr Speaker, we have an obligation to provide a safety net at the top of the cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom, using the old analogy. It is important to ensure that agents who are dealing with people at a sensitive stage in their life - when they are unemployed - fully understand that there is no room to exploit the situation.

Mr Humphries: Why regulate?

MR BERRY: Because there is an opportunity for unscrupulous operators to set themselves up and exploit workers.

Mr Humphries: We have never had complaints.

MR BERRY: How many workers are going to complain about the behaviour of these people when they are in the process of receiving support for them at a cost? Imagine this: Mr Humphries, with his view, could go outside and set up an employment agency, hang up a shingle, and start operating from this point forward. Mr Humphries said that we should be setting up a code of practice under the Fair Trading Act. He complains that it is too expensive to do it under this legislation, but it is not so expensive and it is worth doing under another piece of legislation. Members of the Government oppose this piece of legislation merely because it was Labor that put it forward and they did not think of it themselves. The Government is being bitter and twisted about a sensible piece of legislation which has survived very well, thank you very much, through the committee process, where it has been closely examined. The committee made certain recommendations in relation to the Bill. I have incorporated them in as much of the amendments as I could deal with. The remaining recommendation which has been put forward by the committee is a matter for the Government.

As I said earlier, Mr Humphries was quite inaccurate in the way that he interpreted the committee's proposal. There is a $100 annual fee in New South Wales and a $100 application fee. There is no case for arguing anything else. The committee was quite right in its assessment of the matter. Mr Speaker, this legislation is sensible. It has been put forward to provide protection for people who could be in a vulnerable position, it has been supported by a committee of the Assembly and there is no reason for the Assembly not to support it.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (11.13): Mr Speaker, there is every reason for the Assembly not to support this Bill. Mr Berry, in his comments just then, revealed his own ideological bias against business. To him, if you are in business, in some way you are guilty of abusing workers. He does not understand the way the new system works. It is based on performance. Instead of just handing out money to anybody in the employment business, as was done previously under the Labor Party, the new system is based on getting results. It is about caring for the unemployed by getting them jobs.

All Mr Berry wants to do is to put another impost on business. Why do we need it? It is needed because somebody might abuse it; that is Mr Berry's logic. Let us look at the record. The fair trading people in Mr Humphries' department have had no complaints

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