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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 3224 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

and informed them of the decision to transfer these business units to Totalcare and of the Government's intention to consult with them over the implementation of that decision. The trade union movement responded with industrial action; so we said, "This is what we want to do. Let us talk".

MR SPEAKER: The Minister's time has expired.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Speaker, very quickly, we will never ever take advice from the CFMEU.

Mr Whitecross: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Are you going to make him comply with standing orders? He has been defying your rulings all day, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Minister's time has expired.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (6.56), in reply: I want to make a couple of small contributions to the debate. On the question of the unions, did I hear Mr Whitecross say "divide and conquer"? I have a copy of a motion which apparently was passed today by the Trades and Labour Council. I would like to read it, because it is quite interesting. It says:

The Trades and Labour Council condemns the Carnell Government -

and here is the interesting bit, Mr Speaker -

and their collaborators for executing a secretive attack on the employment security and conditions of workers at DUS.

I wonder who the collaborators might be, Mr Speaker. It sounds like they are people on their side who are not quite on their side. The motion goes on:

Council resolves to support the CPSU, AMWU, CFMEU, TWU, and the plumbing division of the CEPU, in their campaign to oppose corporatisation and its inevitable hardships for members.

The interesting thing about that second part of the motion is: What are the missing unions' names? Why are all of the unions involved in this process not in that motion? There are some missing unions. There are some unions involved that also presumably oppose corporatisation and its inevitable hardships for members, but they do not seem to be prepared to associate themselves with this motion or at least be part of it. Who, I wonder, are the collaborators? Obviously, divide and conquer is a principle that the Government does not need to be involved with, because members of the trade union movement seem to be quite capable of engineering it for themselves.

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