Page 11 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 16 February 1993
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Madam Speaker, the first matter about which Mr Stevenson has asked me today is a matter that I understand is with the Supreme Court, so I will not be taking any action on it while it is the subject of that court action. The second matter is one on which Mr Stevenson has approached me by correspondence. I apologise to Mr Stevenson for not having responded to his letter, but I can say that I am addressing his concerns in a substantive fashion, and that accounts for the delay in responding to him. He has raised some legal issues. He has made some assertions that I believe need to be addressed in detail, and they are being so addressed. I will be conveying that response to him as quickly as I can.
Mr Stevenson has also raised by letter the question of the commissioning of two legal experts to review this matter. I advise Mr Stevenson that my response to that proposition will not be in the affirmative because, as I said, the substantive matters have been dealt with already by this Assembly.
ACTION Employees - Pay Rates
MR WESTENDE: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Connolly. Has the Minister seen the article in the Canberra Times on Sunday, 24 January, re bus employees' pay figures? Will the Minister agree that it appears that mechanics who undertake a four-year apprenticeship average per annum $28,690 while bus drivers, who qualify after five or six weeks' training, average $35,572 plus meal allowances? Will the Minister agree that this does not appear to be a fair situation? Will the Minister further consider introducing multiskilling whereby, for instance, a mechanic could drive a bus part time, say a school bus, for two or three hours a day, and spend the balance as a mechanic and the two or three hours a day he would be driving would be paid at the same rates as bus drivers?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I thank Mr Westende for the question. The first point that needs to be made is that we pay the award rate of pay to all ACTION employees, and under a Labor government, and up until now under Liberal governments as well, workers get award rates of pay. That means that we pay what an independent umpire says is an appropriate rate of pay. You people, of course, want to rip that up and have this nonsense of individual contracts.
There is an implication in Mr Westende's question that somehow the mechanics who have gone through a trade course are being underpaid in comparison to drivers who, Mr Westende said, have undergone only four or five weeks of training, which may suggest that drivers somehow do not have skills. I would firmly reject that and say that the safety record of ACTION, which is outstanding in relation to ACTION drivers' involvement in road accidents - these are professional drivers out on the road all the time - is testimony to their skills.
It also ignores the fact that mechanics, by and large, work ordinary rostered hours. The workshop, by and large, is operating during ordinary daylight hours. There are circumstances where overtime is worked in the workshops and it may be necessary; but, by and large, the workshop employees - mechanics and the non-tradespeople - are working ordinary hours. The drivers, because we have a public transport system that operates from early in the morning until very late
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