Page 670 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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MR SPEAKER: I think that it goes to the rights of individuals in the ACT, Mrs Dunne.
Mrs Dunne: My point being that it is commonwealth legislation. Therefore, what head of responsibility does the Chief Minister have to answer a question about the operation of commonwealth law?
MR SPEAKER: I think that he has a right to reflect upon the effects of any law on ACT residents as the head of government in the ACT.
MR STANHOPE: It is interesting, of course, that the opposition in this place does not want any debate on the workplaces legislation. We know why, of course, members of the Liberal Party in this place do not want any debate or discussion and would seek to stand today to prevent the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory from responding to the implications, effect or impact of a major piece of legislation of which the Liberal Party professes to be proud but does not want to be discussed and does not want responses or answers to. One can understand their sensitivity, because we know after just one day of operation of the effect or the impact which the workplaces legislation will have in the ACT and, indeed, throughout the rest of Australia. We have learned today of the first sackings in Victoria, at Williamstown—
Mrs Dunne: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not know whether the Chief Minister, in answering a question about the rights of people of the ACT—and you have ruled that he has the right to traverse the issue of how it affects people in the ACT—should be referring to matters in Victoria which are clearly not within his ministerial responsibility.
MR SPEAKER: I think that it is open to the Chief Minister to reflect upon examples in other places that might occur here.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, it is entirely appropriate in the context of the impact of the workplaces legislation on the people of the ACT, legislation that has now been in place and operation for 24 hours, that we reflect upon its immediate impact in other places in Australia because the impact in Canberra will be precisely the same. We have learned today, and there has been no denial of it, that the first unprotected sackings have occurred in Victoria under the auspices of the workplaces legislation. It has happened today. Three cabinet-makers were sacked and then offered contracts immediately at $25,000 less than their wage and their package of conditions.
Mrs Burke: Tell the full story.
MR STANHOPE: That is the full story. The full story is that three workers—
Mrs Burke: No, it is not.
MR STANHOPE: The full story, the simple story, is that workers are no longer protected by the regime put in place and relevant for the last 100 years, put in place by our fathers, our grandfathers and our great grandfathers, that allowed Australia to become the nation that it is, to the extent that we have seen, 24 hours into the operation of this legislation, that cabinet-makers, without the protection of a union, without the
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