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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (26 October) . . Page.. 2138 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

there is an agreement entitled "Enterprise Bargaining Between ACTION and the Transport Workers Union", I do not know what is, because there it is. It is signed. If people want to pass this motion, what do we do? Do we make it retrospective? Do we go back and cancel it because Ms Tucker and others might think that it was the wrong thing to do? Of course not. The union was quite happy to sign the agreement.

By the way, that agreement means an increase in wages and a half a million dollars saving for the Government at the same time. That is good government. The worker benefits - he gets more money in his skyrocket - and the community benefits because there is a half a million dollars saving. There is nothing better than that, Ms Tucker. That is what enterprise bargaining is all about, down at the enterprise level. I know that that does not satisfy the ideological bent of some people, and that is fine; but that is the way that Bob Carr does things now, I am told, in New South Wales. It is the way that Wayne Goss has done it in Queensland. It is the way that Bob Hawke started to do things in 1983 and it has been continued by Paul Keating and Laurie Brereton.

It is not as if we are coming in from ideological right field or anything. In fact, if the truth be known, we are copying the very sensible approach adopted by the Federal Labor Government. It is a great approach because it works. If the workplace wants a certain thing to happen and the employer agrees as well, like the TWU enterprise agreement here - it is only for three months, I know, but it is an enterprise agreement - why should we not be able to do that? Of course we should. Are we expected to treat a bus driver, for example, in exactly the same way as we treat a nurse or a doctor?

Mrs Carnell: It would be 9.00 am to 5.00 pm then. We would have no doctors.

MR DE DOMENICO: It would be 9.00 am to 5.00 pm; that is right. Of course we cannot. We have to make sure that we relate our agreement to the enterprise concerned. I am glad that Ms Tucker mentioned Comcare. Let us have a look at Comcare, for example. Is Ms Tucker going to say to us that we should not be negotiating with different areas of the administration in order to get the Comcare costs down? For example, a body like the Milk Authority has had no claims in the past three years, but its Comcare premium has gone up by about 180 per cent. Why is that? Because they are subsidising some other area of government.

Mr Berry: But they are insuring for the future, too.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Berry, you will have your chance if you want to get up on your feet later on. We know what your ideological bent is; so you might as well not say anything and just vote the way you are going to vote anyway.

This is about the Government's right to negotiate enterprise agreements with whomever it wants to. Negotiating enterprise agreements is the salient thing. Ms Tucker comes in, all of a sudden, at 4.45 pm and says, "Stop what you are doing, even though what you are doing is right. Someone briefed me this week, or last week, and, without listening to your argument, I think they are right and you are wrong". That is what you are saying. As Mr Humphries said, "Where has Ms Tucker been for the last three months on industrial relations?". She asked questions at the Estimates Committee and she did not agree with the answers. Well, so what? Mrs Carnell said, "Open the door.

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