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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2563 ..

Mr Quinlan: This is salient stuff.

Mr Hargreaves: It is what happened seven years ago.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I think I should be allowed to complete my remarks. The article accused the Labor government of having a "negative cost-cutting, bean counting" approach. The word "parsimonious" was also used. This is the government that is going to deliver us a reduction in "workplace tension". The evidence is that Labor represents a very combative approach, and particularly that is likely to be the case when they propose to take benefits away from workers, and put their hands in the pockets of workers in this territory, as Mr Berry has planned in this place. Clearly, Mr Stanhope is not going to do anything about stopping him doing that.

Mr Hird: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to have those document incorporated in Hansard.

MR SPEAKER: There may be a technical problem.

Leave granted.

The documents read as follows:

ACT Government 'on thin ice' over enterprise agreement

Berry not helpful: union

Unions negotiating with the ACT Government for a public-service wide enterprise agreement were "really angry" and felt a meeting with Industrial Relations Minister Wayne Berry yesterday had "gone backwards", the Trades and Labour Council said.

The council's acting secretary, Maureen Sheehan, said the unions had wanted to clarify funding arrangements for the draft agreement. Productivity negotiations over the past six months had proceeded on the basis of a 4 per cent pay rise over two years, plus CPI increases.

Mr Berry's offer yesterday was for 2.5 per cent rise over two years, with 1.5 per cent indexation. According to Ms Sheehan, Mr Berry had said pay increases must be paid for out of savings in work practices. He had wanted these savings quantified. But Ms Sheehan said the unions could not put dollar-value on all the productivity savings.

There had been no provision made in the Budget for the wage increases, she said.

The unions would meet at 10am today to discuss the issue, and the Government was hoping to have a position in response. But Ms Sheehan predicted the TLC would knock the offer back. They had wanted an agreement by December 20.

With the danger of industrial action from the Transport Workers' Union over their enterprise agreement, and a Public Sector Union unsympathetic to the bargaining framework, the Government was "skating on thin ice if they want an agreement".

She felt the Government was being "driven by their own bureaucracy", and Mr Berry had said on occasions during yesterday's meeting, "Treasury won't let me do this or that".

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