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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1827 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I am not misquoting you. I am summarising what I believe your position to be, Mr Berry, and you said before that you wanted a collectivist approach. You said that. That is what you said.

Mr Berry: No, I didn't. Don't misquote me. I've been Gary-ed again. You're a bloody liar, Gary.

MR HUMPHRIES: Play the man, not the ball; that is fine!

Mr Speaker, this issue is one of flexibility on the part of individual members. There is no reason why members ought to be told that the terms and conditions of their staff, within the limits which are prescribed in this determination, should not be set by each member and the member's staff in negotiation. That is the purpose of the Workplace Relations Act. Mr Berry was quick to say that he believes we ought to be working within that act in this process, that we should not breach the Workplace Relations Act 1996 of the Commonwealth. I agree. That act foreshadows the possibility of doing these things on a workplace by workplace basis, or even an individual employee by individual employee basis. That, it seems to me, is the most important thrust of the Workplace Relations Act, and that is what this determination provides for. Within the Workplace Relations Act, we say that members are entitled to be able to negotiate outcomes which suit their particular conditions.

Mr Berry gave a remarkably short speech in support of the disallowance motion. I understood him to be saying to members of this place that certain staff members were disadvantaged in some way by the present arrangements. Mr Berry has not elaborated on what he means by that or how he has reached that conclusion. Let me say now that if he comes back and puts such cases forward in his closing remarks to this debate, I will seek leave to speak again on the matter, because I am told that there is no disadvantage to any staff member of this place by virtue of this determination being made.

Let me refer to some of the other specific matters which Mr Berry raised. Mr Berry asserts that the clerks award 1998 is an inappropriate basis or benchmark against which to measure the no-disadvantage test in the ACT. He cites instead the journalists award, J345, as the better award. Let me say first of all that I do not know whether it is a better award. My advice is that the clerks award is the appropriate award. If Mr Berry was serious about this concern, however, he would have come forward today with an amendment to this determination to insert a different award there, but he has not done that.

Mr Berry: No, I don't believe any of that.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I know that, Mr Berry, but you have used that as a pretext to knock out the determination, but have not explained exactly why. Why is the journalists award a better award than the clerks award? I assume that it is because it offers a higher minimum rate of pay to members. He has not told us why, but I assume that that is the case. That is fine; we can determine that. I do not know what are the differences in the two rates. If Mr Berry had bothered to tell us about these things beforehand, we would know what his argument is, but he has not done that.

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