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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (13 December) . . Page.. 257 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

regulation that delivers appropriate wages and conditions. The government will also encourage the protection of all employees in the ACT through provision of minimum wages and conditions in a strong and relevant award system. The ACT will also participate more actively in the 2002 living wage case.

I also intend personally to take a strong role in matters relating to the deliberations of the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. The membership of the council comprises Commonwealth, state and territory ministers responsible for industrial relations, who meet twice a year to discuss important issues affecting all of our jurisdictions. Under the previous government, attendance by responsible ministers at the council was, to say the least, sporadic. In fact, the previous government was not interested. The ACT work force can be assured that this government views attendance at this forum as important, and I look forward to representing the territory at council meetings.

Mr Speaker, there is undeniable evidence that Australians in nearly every industry are being subjected to excessive working hours and workloads. The government supports the call by the ACTU to address excessive hours and increased workloads across all sectors of the community. The government also supports the introduction of a public sector and common rule private sector award clause that would ensure that workers are not forced to work excessive hours.

In respect of the ACT public service, the government, in consultation with the union movement, is committed to reducing the number of agency enterprise bargaining agreements and ensuring that these agreements are all union negotiated. The government has also agreed to establish a set of core conditions that cannot be diminished by enterprising bargaining at agency level.

On 21 November the Chief Minister announced that he had directed discussions with relevant unions to commence as soon as possible, with a view to the establishment of a union management consultative council on public service management. A mechanism for such a consultative council has been available for some years under the Public Sector Management Act 1994.

Unlike the previous government, we will utilise the provision for consultation on a wide range of strategic public service management issues that will benefit all ACT public servants. This forum will enable staff representatives to be consistently consulted about all significant issues affecting them.

In keeping with our policy of fairness and equity for all workplaces, the government is looking at alternatives to Australian workplace agreements, whilst recognising the need to maintain necessary flexibility to respond to market pressures in particular categories of employment.

The government is also committed to maintaining and improving occupational injury prevention programs by ensuring the comprehensive enforcement and administration of occupational health and safety legislation. While recognising that there is considerable scope for improvement of occupational health and safety legislation, it is my intention that any review of the legislation be considered in full by the Occupational Health and Safety Council, which has representatives from government, unions and employers.

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