Page 1532 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
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a central part of the job that you see as your role as MLA. I do not think you need a committee to do that.
I also wanted to say that I heard what you said, which was obviously causing Mrs Burke some distress. I am talking about issues that may or may not be true. I am not party to the information, but I am looking at the implications of talking like that about something that a member is associated with. It makes it very difficult for a member to do a critique. Yet that is the role of members of the Assembly. No matter what we have done or are associated in, it is legitimate to express a point of view that has some bearing.
In this case, Mrs Burke has moved a motion that asks that a report of a committee be deferred for a time. She has moved that, regardless of her history in industrial relations. It is a political point scorer, I guess. I need to refer here to the speech that I made when this committee was set up. I guess today’s discussion bears it out. I saw that, as the committee would have two Labor members and a third member—it could have been me; as it ended up, it is one of the opposition—it would just be another arena in which the whole debate about the WorkChoices legislation would be played out. I question the sensibleness of that.
As it was, the terms of reference were launched upon us without discussion. To me—and I was new; I am not as new now—that went against the whole idea of how committees work. Everyone in the Assembly should have an opportunity to influence a select committee of the Assembly, but that was not offered to us at that time. Sometimes I hear members of the government talk about the Assembly, when really they are talking about the government. That is possible because there is a majority; that is the way the numbers fall. When a motion can be amended, with the numbers, to become the motion, then it is not really fair to say that it was the Assembly, even though technically it is true.
While absolutely committed to a campaign against the WorkChoices legislation and very concerned about the impact it is having in our community—and I believe that I, as a member, can talk to constituents, can go to meetings with unions and can do all kinds of things—I do not think that a committee is necessary, especially when it is a committee that has a political agenda rather than perhaps a fact-finding one, although there are many facts to be found, and especially when it is used in the way that I have heard it used today.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (11.18): Mrs Burke would have us believe that there is little happening on the industrial relations front in this country. Her motion ignores the evidence and comments that we have heard in the committee since we have been holding public hearings. Mrs Burke’s motion is simply an attempt by the Liberal opposition to distance themselves from this legislation. It is not just parliamentarians that are very uneasy; 72 per cent of voters support unfair dismissal laws that protect workers; 59 per cent of voters believe that the government’s new IR laws alone are strong reasons to vote against the federal government at the next federal election; and 66 per cent believe that the laws are a threat to every working family.
We have heard from Mr Gentleman about several cases of employers abusing the rights of workers already—drivers behind the wheels of trucks, for instance, and the worker that he mentioned making juice at a juice bar. We have heard from Mr Gentleman also about the Canberra childcare worker sacked without any warning or right to unfair
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