Page 3311 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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MADAM SPEAKER (Ms McRae) took the chair at 2.30 pm and read the prayer.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Industrial Relations - Trade Union Action
MR KAINE: I address a question to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, you have publicly supported the trade unions in the ACT striking against the coalition's industrial relations policy. This public support for such action - and I point out that these are the policies of a coalition which for the time being is still in opposition - places you in a position where you and Prime Minister Keating are the only heads of government condoning this action. At a time of record unemployment, record bankruptcies, record business closures, record job losses and record debt, how can you join with the nation's most irresponsible leader ever to justify such a massive loss in productivity in this community?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I say to Mr Kaine that I consider myself to be in excellent company on this matter. I believe that it is widely seen, not just in Victoria but throughout the Australian community, that the action Mr Kennett has taken is irresponsible in the extreme. It is action that is designed to disadvantage people who have jobs and who have taken on those jobs under a certain set of conditions, one of which was their leave loading, only to find that when Mr Kennett came to office he wrote that off with the stroke of a pen. It is an example, I am afraid, of a hidden agenda that had never been revealed to the people. Mr Kennett has been heard to say that he believes that he has a mandate for that. How on earth he considers that he has a mandate for something he never put to the people is beyond me.
There is no doubt that Mr Kennett's style of industrial relations, if you could call it that, will be mirrored by Dr Hewson in the unlikely event that he ever has a chance to perform in government. I believe that that is a widespread fear in the community, and trade unions have every right to protect the conditions and the rights of their members. They have every right to demonstrate in their own community that they will stand up for the workers in that community, even in the face of the kinds of tactics Mr Kennett has indulged in in Victoria. I support the right of trade unions to do that.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I take it, then, that in order to support the discredited Labor Government in Victoria you are quite willing to put at risk future jobs that might be available for the 15,000 Canberrans who cannot find even part-time work?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, that is not a question. It is a purely hypothetical statement made by the Leader of the Opposition in some kind of attempt to give credence to Mr Kennett's draconian actions in Victoria. It is a nonsense argument to state that taking away the rights of workers in Victoria will somehow address the problem of unemployment. That is exactly the kind of argument we hear
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