Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1826 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Let me say in no uncertain terms, Mr Berry, that that is absolutely right. I do not wish to take responsibility for negotiating the terms and conditions under which you employ your staff, or Mr Kaine, Ms Tucker or Mr Rugendyke. I consider it to be your responsibility to do that. Provided certain protections are in place-that is, that you do not pay them less than a minimum amount, which is embodied in this award by reference to the no-disadvantage test-and provided you adhere to certain limits, it ought to be up to you to make these decisions for yourself. Mr Speaker, there have been circumstances in the past where, I think it is fair to say, members have abused this flexibility to engineer arrangements for their staff which might be considered to be inappropriate.

The members of this place who were members of the First Assembly will recall that at time Mr Stevenson, the Abolish Self Government Coalition representative in this place, sought to cease employment altogether and instead come to some sort of arrangement for contracting services from a company and have a company supply staff to his office. Members were suspicious about what exactly that meant. They felt that there was some sort of tax-avoidance arrangement going on. At the time, the capacity to do that was removed from the Legislative Assembly (Members' Staff) Act, as I recall.

Mr Stevenson has gone and members have behaved in a very responsible way with respect to their staff, at least in terms of their terms and conditions, since that time and I have no hesitation in taking the view that members ought to be able to determine what their own staffing conditions should be. I think that Mr Berry is making it clear in moving this motion today that he considers that there should be a collective approach to these matters covering all staff in the Assembly.

Mr Berry: An opportunity for that.

MR HUMPHRIES: No. Let me make one thing clear: it is perfectly possible today for staff members collectively to put a position forward to all of their employers in this place if they want to. Staff members only have to get together and say that they will present conditions collectively to their de facto employers, the individual members of this place, and that would be a perfectly acceptable process. If the members accept that, that will be the result of that process.

Let us put a reality check on this matter for a minute. Mr Berry, how likely is it that your staff member and my staff member are going to sit down together and negotiate some common industrial outcome? It is extremely unlikely, I would have thought. All of our staff are very good, hardworking people, but they are not people who would sit down together and collectively negotiate an employment arrangement vis-a-vis all the members of the Assembly as one collective body, or more particularly against the Chief Minister, who would be the person conducting these negotiations. Mr Speaker, this is bluntly stupid.

Mr Berry accused us of being ideological but, in fact, it is Mr Berry who is being ideological, Mr Berry who is saying that there must be a collectivist approach, that there must be an approach which involves unions in all cases-

Mr Berry: No, don't misquote me.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .