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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3738 ..

MS DUNDAS (4.52): When I said earlier that I would be supporting all of the government amendments, I did mean it; but I believe that Mr Smyth has put forward a better amendment to this clause than the one proposed by the government. We are talking about a timeframe for negotiation. I think that it is important that we have the timeframe specified in legislation, which is why I am happy with what the government is doing, but I am concerned about the reference to 31 December 2003.

I do not think that the public interest will be served by having a rushed contract negotiation period. The three-month period is usually provided for in negotiations for a reason. I think that the period should be shortened only by agreement between the parties. It would be possible for the government to negotiate bridging arrangements to cover the VMOs whose contracts expire before negotiation or arbitration on replacement contracts has concluded. I believe that it is the fault of the government that we have been left until so late in this year with the establishment of a new framework for contract negotiations. I do not think that the VMOs should suffer as a result of that.

Whilst I am glad that we are putting in a minimum period for negotiations, I would like to see it applied to all of the contracts and not those being negotiated after 31 December 2003. As to the negotiations that will be coming up in November, the contracts can be extended or the parties might agree that they want to shorten the negotiation period for that set of contracts. Those options are available if we put in place a new framework now and not wait until 31 December.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (4.54): Mr Speaker, it certainly would be in Mr Smyth's interests to create and paint a picture of disregard, a mess, chaos and all the things that he suggested in his speech. I am sure that any shadow Minister for Health would welcome an industrial dispute, but that is not in the best interests of the territory.

Let me try to put in some context what the government is doing here. The government is establishing a framework for negotiation which has not existed before in the ACT. It is a considerable piece of policy work to achieve that and it is something which has not been in place before in the ACT.

The approach that the government is proposing through this bill is the sort of approach which has been in place in New South Wales for a number of decades and the parties there manage to achieve a more orderly renegotiation of contracts without the widespread disruption experienced repeatedly in the ACT both before and since self-government. That is the reason for the timing now. This is not a minor change; it is a major change to the policy setting and it has required work for that change to be at the point where the Assembly can debate it today.

Mr Speaker, in relation to the point that Mr Smyth makes and in relation to the point that Ms Dundas makes, it is certainly the view of at least one doctor organisation that I have spoken to-that is, the AMA-that they are happy with only having this clause apply post-December. They appreciate that they need to see the negotiations dealt with in a timely way once this legislation has been passed. The VMOA has not expressed an opinion, but the AMA in discussion with me has not raised any concern about this clause

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