Page 864 - Week 03 - Thursday, 30 March 2006
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he will be gone.” There is no explanation and no justification, just “On your bike, sonny. You’re done here.”
We will see it. I will be walking away, too, from the party that claims to support the family and the importance of family and the support the family gives. Yesterday we saw the smirking in relation to information provided about the peremptory, unheralded and unannounced sacking of a family man with five kids at home. You smirked. You laughed. You thought he deserved it. You showed no sympathy, no compassion and no thought for the impact on that family with five children. You had no concern at all that a hardworking man with five kids doing an honest job was okay last Friday, but come Monday he was expendable and so were his family.
Do not stand up in this place and cry crocodile tears about how you support the family. You support some families. You have no sympathy and no compassion. You were laughing and smirking that the legislation which you sponsored and which you supported, but which now you are quietly trying to walk away from, has those implications for individual workers and families. It is because the protections and laws and rules against unfair dismissal have been removed.
Of course, it is not just in relation to that. The first and most significant and visible changes will come as a result of the abandonment of laws in relation to unfair dismissal. At the end of the day the more damaging and deeply hurting changes will be those in relation to wages and conditions as workers are forced—
MR SPEAKER: Order! The minister’s time has expired.
MS MacDONALD: I ask a supplementary question. I thank the Chief Minister for attempting to answer the question in spite of the interference. Chief Minister, my supplementary question is: what impact are these changes likely to have on the community?
MR STANHOPE: We know there will be very serious impacts from this legislation. We see it already in the peremptory, unexplained dismissal of workers and the impacts on them. But there will be other impacts as well. There will be impacts in relation to the changing face of negotiation and the way in which industrial action can or cannot be taken.
Mrs Burke: I raise a point of order under standing order 117 (b) (vii), which deals with hypothetical matters. Is not this a hypothetical?
MR SPEAKER: The question asked what impacts there will be on the community.
Mrs Burke: These actions have not yet happened, Mr Speaker.
MR STANHOPE: Yes, they are. The laws are there. The laws are passed.
Mrs Burke: No. The effects on the community have not yet happened. If Ms MacDonald repeats her question, we will see.
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