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The OH and S provisions are enshrined in law. This is about protecting all of those standards which apply right across the ACT Government Service. It is about protecting the management of them as well and providing proper resources to ensure that workers in the workplace are provided with those facilities at a consistent standard - not at a standard that would be interfered with by the profitability of the organisation, but at a standard which is proper. I go back to that point where the Government said that any changes to conditions of employment will be negotiated with all relevant parties through the enterprise bargaining process. I know that the debate in relation to the effective date of the legislation, where that was raised, has slipped past us now. This seems to say that the Government is not going to change anything and that workers have nothing to fear. If they do not have anything to fear, why not leave alone what they have, instead of stripping away the protections which are provided by way of the relevant legislation, which, in this case, is the Public Sector Management Act? At the risk of provoking a point of order from Mr Moore - thankfully, he is not listening - let me say that a committee did very closely - - -

Mr Moore: I do not want to interject, Mr Speaker, so I will not; but that is unfair.

MR BERRY: I withdraw any imputation.

MR SPEAKER: Against all members?

MR BERRY: No; just Mr Moore this time.

MR SPEAKER: As to whether or not they were listening, Mr Berry?

Mr Moore: Mr Berry, I am absolutely riveted by your enthusiasm.

MR BERRY: He ought to be riveted. Mr Moore was once in the type of employment that had the sort of protection which is provided by the Public Sector Management Act. He would know the value of that protection as it would apply to employees in the workplace. I was in a similar position, although again under a statutory authority - and I valued the sort of protection that was provided to me. To throw it open, I think, is an entirely dangerous move, an unwarranted one, and one which we will not be thanked for in the future.

MR MOORE (10.47): Mr Speaker, it seems that, fundamentally, this amendment, combined with a few of the other amendments of Mr Whitecross’s, undoes what we have just agreed to do, which is to corporatise ACTEW and henceforth distance it somewhat from the Public Sector Management Act. It seems to me, therefore, that the appropriate thing to do with this amendment is to vote no, and that is what I shall do.

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