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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 365 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (5.03): Mr Speaker, earlier today Mr Berry made some comments - I will show that yogic flying has not worked yet - about the 1993 case that he was involved in with regard to nurses' rosters. I would like to quote from the conclusion of the Industrial Relations Commission recommendations by Mr Larkin from last week. In the conclusion he starts off by saying:

Having thoroughly pursued the matters before Commissioners Smith and Foggo I take the view that the issue before this Commission is substantially the same as the issue addressed in 1993, that is, the introduction of a change of rosters.

It seems to me that it shows quite categorically that the commissioner believed that it was the same thing; it is just Mr Berry who has a different point of view. It is also interesting that Mr Berry went on in that particular statement to say that he would always pay attention to the umpire and that the umpire was the way that you should go. I quote from the Canberra Times of February 1985:

The ACT Secretary of the Federal Firefighters Union, Mr Wayne Berry, declined to give a commitment yesterday that he would abide by the decision of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission on the union's dispute with the ACT Fire Commissioner.

I do not know whether or not Mr Berry's approach to the umpire has changed.

MR BERRY (5.04): Mr Speaker, I often rebelled when I was at school, too; but it never amounted to much in this Assembly. Mrs Carnell tried to twist the events. The fact of the matter is that it was a dispute about rosters. As I said earlier in my personal explanation, it was not in relation to a fixation on a triple-eight roster. That is what Mrs Carnell has had throughout the debate. Mrs Carnell, if you would like to deal with the entire issue in relation to the dispute to which you refer, it might take a much longer period of time than we have available to us in this Assembly.

Mr Humphries: I think you were caught out, Wayne.

MR BERRY: He thinks I was caught out. Relating what I have done in this place to what happened 10 years ago is stretching it a bit.

There is one other matter that I would like to talk about. Mr Humphries, in moving that the Assembly do now adjourn, should also remember that the Government does not seem very keen to get on with its agenda. Orders of the day Nos 5 and 6 have been the subject of discussion between Mr De Domenico and me. I understood that he was not going to proceed with them. The Opposition stands ready to deal with orders of the day Nos 7 and 8, if you so wish.

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