Page 1942 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 August 2007
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MR GENTLEMAN: It is: will the Chief Minister tell the Assembly what would be the effect of an unconditional government response, as proposed by Mr Stefaniak, to the receiver’s request for assistance?
Mr Stefaniak: I do not think I proposed that at all, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: That is not relevant.
Mr Stefaniak: It should be.
MR SPEAKER: You might think so.
Mrs Dunne: On the point of order, you have ruled, and previous Speakers in this place have ruled, that comments reported in the papers in relation to other members of the Assembly are not within the purview of anyone in the government.
MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. The question asked the Chief Minister what the government’s response would be.
MR STANHOPE: We can understand the sensitivity of the Liberal Party.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Never mind the Liberal Party. Come to the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: Just imagine a response by this government or any government to a request by the private sector for a government—in other words, the taxpayer—to prop up a failed company, to prop up the creditors of a failed company, without applying some conditions that went to the need to protect the working entitlements of members of that failed company’s workforce. The essential proposition proposed today by the opposition was that the banks must come first. The National Australia Bank, the leading secured creditor, a company which achieved a profit of $5 billion in its past financial year, and which has lent and secured credit to the tune of $10 million to $15 million at the Hume mill, has appointed a receiver. Of course, the receiver is working for the bank, and the receiver is asking me to provide ACT taxpayers’ money to this company to support it over the next five months.
The Liberal Party believes it is not appropriate for me to seek to ensure that the workers—the 110 men and women whose superannuation has not been secured, whose long service leave has not been secured, whose holiday pay has not been secured and whose redundancy payments have not been secured—should not be protected by the government on behalf of the people of the ACT, yet we should provide taxpayers’ money to the private sector. This really highlights the absolutely ideological position pursued by the Liberal Party through WorkChoices, a disdain for working men and women and working families, and a disdain for the 110 employees at Hume whom I am seeking to protect.
The secured creditors are five financiers. The major secured creditor, one of our leading banks, a bank that achieved a profit of over $5 billion in its past year, is to be given precedence over the workers at Hume in the eyes and the mind of Bill Stefaniak
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