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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2270 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Tidbinbilla entrance fees. Sometimes Mr Osborne does and sometimes he does not, I guess.

MR BERRY (11.11): I do not support Mr Osborne's amendment. I think it waters the process down. I told Mr Osborne about subsection (5). As I have explained, we will not run away from that. The government has just told us that "call on" is of a much lower order than "direct". I hold these workers' position in a much higher order than it seems the government would do if we support Mr Osborne's "calls on".

I have a different view of the convention. The convention, as I understand it, is that "calls on" is usually used as a courtesy rather than being so blunt as to direct. I would always expect that if the government did not listen to what the Assembly said there would be some sort of punishment in the wings. That might just depend on the mood of the Assembly on the day. But we have quite a different position here from this minister. He is saying that he treats "directs" differently. He gives it a higher standing than he would "calls on".

I do not fancy putting motions to the government that they are going to ignore. I have been through this process before. I do not want to build up false hopes amongst workers. We have already heard what the government said. It does not like this. If we give them a wussy motion, they will just walk away from it. I am not inclined to support the amendment. I believe it should be "direct", and I would urge members to support the motion that we direct the government.

There is a few thousand dollars involved in this. It is the difference between unfair and fair play. As I said earlier, I want to make sure that these workers get a fair go. I do not think calling on the government and providing them with a let-out will get these workers a fair go-in fact, quite the contrary. I think the amendment provides the government with a let-out and will make it harder for these workers to achieve a fair go in the scheme of things. So I will be opposing Mr Osborne's amendment.

Question put:

The Assembly having voted and the Speaker having declared the result-

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I rise under standing order 165. I believe that an error occurred in the way in which the votes were cast, and I ask that the vote be called again.

MR SPEAKER: I know it is late, but we have only ourselves to blame. If members would pay a little more attention we might be able to get through this accurately. We will proceed to another vote.

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