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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 660 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

There is a lack of detail about what is in the submission, other than the fact that it provides a $25 a week minimum pay rise for Australian workers. The only information we have been supplied in conjunction with that fact is simply an attack on the federal Liberal government.

I am glad you have got it, Mr Corbell.

Mr Corbell: It is on the Internet.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is great. I do not have the Internet in front of me. If you believed it was such an important document, why didn't you table it in this place?

Mr Corbell: I am going to.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I think it is inappropriate to ask the Assembly to endorse a document in these terms. As I said, the speech Ms Gallagher gave was basically an attack on the federal Liberal government. It was about a federal agenda, a national issue. I think with-

Mr Corbell: It is about an issue that affects workers in the ACT.

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, let's be clear that workers in the ACT enjoy, to quote the Canberra Times, fatter pay packets than any other workers in Australia.

Mr Corbell: Oh! I will go and tell people who earn $21,000 a year! Go and tell that to people who earn $21,000 a year!

MR HUMPHRIES: The point is, Mr Speaker, there are not too many in the ACT on $21,000 a year.

Mr Corbell: There are a significant number.

MR HUMPHRIES: The fact is that the ACT needs to have a clear understanding of its role and what its advantages are from this arrangement. In particular, it needs to have the issue of the national ACTU/Labor government agenda separated from the question of what benefits there are, in this submission, to workers in the ACT.

You have not presented that argument at all. This has been entirely about the national argument and about the attack on the federal Liberal government. For that reason, I do not intend to support it. If you want a straight diatribe about that, we will have a debate, but I would like to know what the details are.

Mr Corbell: Would you ever support it?

MR HUMPHRIES: Would you ever support us in those circumstances? Obviously not. You did not support our position before. Would you ever have supported it? No, you would not. It cuts both ways, Mr Speaker.

We have heard much in this debate about the position of the lowest paid in Australia, and how the position of the lowest paid in Australia has been deteriorating in recent years.

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