Page 3021 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (6.16): I note Mrs Dunne’s pursuit of a workers’ rights agenda, and I congratulate her for it. The right to work in a safe, harassment-free environment is one I am glad we can agree on. Well, at least all in Labor, all in the Greens and Mrs Dunne. I will let her speculate on the views of her union-busting colleagues. I will save speculating about those things for another day. I will also restrain myself from referring to Mrs Dunne as “Comrade Dunne” in this speech because she would not appreciate it and I am not sure she is all the way across yet. But I continue to live in hope; nobody is beyond the reach of our solidarity.
Mrs Dunne has pointed out some serious concerns that have been raised. As a workers’ rights issue, this is a matter that I have been following very, very closely. I have seen the minister listen, acknowledge the problems and work to solve them. Despite Minster Fitzharris’s amazing skills, she does not have a magic wand. And if she did try to use magic to manage her department, I believe we would have some other concerns.
With the minister having got the big calls right, the ongoing building of a collaborative, respectful environment is the goal. The best solution for building positive work cultures, as Mrs Dunne should know, is union. If Mrs Dunne needs any introductions to either the concepts or the people, I am very happy to facilitate that—unions like the CPSU, the HSU, the AMWU, Professionals Australia, the ANMF, and/or if she really wants to get militant about things, the AMA.
Whilst I absolutely agree with the importance of bullying and harassment being raised in any and every forum, solving them is a different issue. I said earlier that Minister Fitzharris does not have a magic wand. I may stand to be corrected, but I also believe Mrs Dunne does not have a magic wand or any of the associated powers. As I said earlier, raising these issues is valuable; however, solving them is far more important. And that is the contrast: Mrs Dunne is raising issues that have already been well and truly raised, and Minister Fitzharris is solving them. It is not the first time that this contrast has been made in ACT politics and it probably will not be the last.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.19), in reply: I was quite pleased when the minister said at the outset that she was going to clarify some issues, but she used some of the language that was used in estimates. She said that this was one side of the story, but she did not actually elaborate as to what other part of the story we were missing. I potentially stand corrected. The advice to me, and I have not had any evidence otherwise, was that this was not a planned accreditation. But irrespective of that, you have to remember that during this planned accreditation into whether or not the radiology department should continue as a training facility, it got 28 of 33 criteria assessed as a C or a D, downgraded from A. It did not get one A in 33 criteria.
I want to go back to Mr Rattenbury’s comments and then conclude by talking about Minister Fitzharris’s comments. Mr Rattenbury said that the Greens could not support this motion because we have already had an independent review of the radiology department. No, Madam Speaker; we have had an independent review of whether or not the radiology department should be accredited as a training institution. That highlighted a whole lot of other issues. In addition to those issues, which I have
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