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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 736 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

question has to be: what can the employer and the employees do to ensure that those people have other employment?

There is clearly an obligation on the employer in today's world. It did not use to be so; somebody could leave a job and get another job virtually overnight for most of the period of my lifetime. People cannot do that any more. If they are made redundant here, one has to ask: where can they go to get a job in the forestry industry? There are not too many jobs anywhere else, either.

That imposes a responsibility on the employer-in this case the ACT government-to find ways of placing those people in other suitable employment. It will probably require training programs. It will probably require negotiation with all sorts of employers to find slots into which these people can go. On the part of the employee, there has to be an acceptance of the fact that they have to change the nature of their occupation.

It has happened right across the workplace. Just think of the workplace in the public sector even 20 years ago. Where did all the tea ladies go? Where did the typists go? Where did the people go who worked on filing in the registry? There were hundreds of them. Those jobs do not exist any more. Even in the last 10 years they have gone. All of those people have had to confront the fact that they had to train and be willing to accept other types of employment.

For Mr Berry to suggest that the forestry workers in the ACT are somehow different and that their secure future in the ACT logging industry has to be guaranteed no matter what is to be totally out of step with the reality of the world in which we live.

Mr Berry: I never said that.

MR KAINE: I do not want to get into an argument on this issue with Mr Berry. I know that he has very firm views on it, based on his union background. I do not want to get into a dispute with the unions. I think that I can reasonably claim to have had a pretty good working relationship with the unions in this city over the last 10 years. I do not want to get into a hold with them and I do not want to be too critical of them, but I think that most of them do accept the reality of the need for flexibility, and this is such a case.

It comes down, in my view, to the fact that the government has an obligation to find alternative employment into which these people can go, even if it requires some expense on the government's part to train them. Mr Berry referred in particular to a person whom I heard being interviewed on radio. He was 59 years old. He had been in the ACT logging industry for 30 years or so. He felt that his job was going to be terminated and he asked a good question. He said, "What am I going to do for employment at my age with no experience in anything other than the logging industry?"

That is a question that the employer has to deal with. Some people in this place might ask the same question the day they lose their seat here. What are they going to do? How are they going to get a job? Do they have any skills to get a job? I notice Mr Moore is having a little chuckle. He might have to confront that issue in a few months. But it is a serious matter and the government does have to accept responsibility for finding other employment for these people and, if necessary, spending some money on training them so that they are able to make the transition into some other form of employment and at

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