Page 746 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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awards and so on, and the legislation that governs employment would simply be thrown out the window by members opposite in some sort of ideological search for purity of some description. I completely fail to see, Madam Speaker, how this kind of action would create any more jobs. It is the same thinking that led the Liberals to put up the $3 youth wage. It is a nonsense to think that by disadvantaging one group of workers, a group of workers in this case who have earned the right to their conditions of service, you will create more jobs. As I say, I have no such action in mind and, indeed, I would not consider such action.
Industry Commission - Public Transport Inquiry
MR DE DOMENICO: Madam Speaker, my question also is to the Minister for Urban Services and, like Mrs Grassby's, it is also about the Industry Commission conference this week. Once the Minister's department finishes making its submission to the Industry Commission, will the Minister provide members of this Assembly with a copy of that submission? Secondly, is it not a fact that that submission was being hastily prepared, in fact today, following reports in the media that the department had not made a submission?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, the second point is absolutely incorrect. As I said earlier, there has been regular correspondence, on at least four occasions since early 1992, when officers of my department have been in liaison with the Industry Commission in relation to our submission, and it has always been agreed that our submission would be received after the date on which public submissions closed. So there has been no last-minute rush. It has always been agreed by the Industry Commission that this submission would be prepared somewhat later.
I would be delighted to give Mr De Domenico a copy of our submission when it has been finalised. It will yet again show that it has been only this Labor Government which has been prepared to get in there and turn around problems with the economic efficiency of public transport in the ACT. The graph which I previously gleefully waved around in this chamber showed that during the period of Mr Kaine's stewardship the subsidy for ACTION continued to increase. As was published in the Advance Bank's journal, the Trends magazine, a couple of months ago, the level of subsidy and inefficiency under Mr Kaine was increasing steadily. It turned around remarkably when this Labor administration came into office because we have been serious about achieving workplace reform and achieving change. We will be very happy to show the submission to Mr De Domenico and any other member when it has been finalised in accordance with the agreement with the Industry Commission, going back many months.
MR DE DOMENICO: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Noting that the conference is a two-day conference, when does the Minister expect that submission to be finalised? Is it not true that the Minister just said in his answer that he has been negotiating with the commission since early 1992? Why does it take a year to present a submission - a late one at that - for a conference that lasts for two days and which finishes, I am saying, in two days' time? When will that submission be ready?
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