Page 2976 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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There is no reference to the original terms of reference in the report, and I think that is an indictment on the analytical skills, the research gathering skills, of Mr Gentleman. We know the committee went out and told people about the public hearings, because there is a list of ads in the Canberra Times, and we know that some people wanted to turn up, and they are there—the AEU, the Public Sector Union, the CFMEU. The list is long and horrible. Thank God the Chamber of Commerce turned up and that a small business turned up to tell the committee how it really was. But the sad reality of the 12 recommendations is that they come down to costing about $1,666.66 each. For the 14 hours of public hearing over more than two years that Mr Gentleman chaired, that was at a cost of about $1,700 an hour. You can only hope that Mr Gentleman has some sense of personal shame and offers to return the money. If ever there were a member hunting around for a select committee with a chair’s allowance attached, that was Mr Gentleman. This is a sham, and he has been caught out.
We know the government is caught out, Mr Speaker, because it did not want us to come back and discuss the detail of this report. If I were the government, if I were Simon Corbell or Jon Stanhope, I would not have wanted to have the report discussed either, because it is absolutely appalling to have a report that does not actually focus on those that it was meant to inquire into. We know that is the case by going to paragraph 1.4 in the introduction. Remember, this is an inquiry with terms of reference to examine the effects on working families of changes to industrial relations legislation, but is that what they inquired into? No, because paragraph 1.4 says:
This report does not attempt to analyse all aspects of this complex legislation, but concentrates on the key areas of the legislation that have been brought to the attention of the Committee. In particular, the Committee focuses on individual workplace agreements and changes to unfair dismissal laws, as they pertain to people in the ACT. The report also touches on changes to the award system and right of entry.
Well, I must have been reading the wrong report, because the terms of reference were to examine the effects on working families in the ACT of changes to industrial relations legislation, with particular reference to a number of acts. But that is not what Mr Gentleman did, Mr Speaker. He fesses up—he says, “This is a witch-hunt on AWAs and WorkChoices, but we have dressed it up. In the original dressing up, instead of mutton dressed up as lamb, we got turkey, and then we changed it to goose!” That is the problem with this report; it is a report that does not do any credit to the committee system of the ACT Assembly. One of the great strengths of the committee system of the ACT Assembly used to be that we tried to take a bipartisan approach to ensure that we could come up with recommendations that an ACT government could actually implement.
Now, let us go to the recommendations. Recommendation 1:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government develop strategies, in partnership with community groups, to continue to monitor the impact of the WorkChoices legislation on the ACT community.
It has worked on it for two years, and what is the number one recommendation? Let us keep watching! Now, I fully expected a select committee to be set up on Thursday
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