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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2259 ..

MR BERRY: I move:

This motion arises out of the redundancy of Totalcare workers which has occurred in the wake of the loss of the Housing contract which has been the subject of debate in this place in the past. I do not need to say too much about the detail of the loss of the Housing contract other than to say that I think Totalcare workers were given an unfair deal, especially given that Housing had been apparently satisfied with the service that Totalcare had provided up to a point. But by way of a tendering process Totalcare mysteriously lost the job and these workers were put at risk.

I am informed that workers at Totalcare, about 35 of them, have been targeted for redundancy-that is, you, you, you, you and you-rather than there being a voluntary approach. We have always insisted on a voluntary approach to redundancies. We think redundancies are regrettable, and this is not an endorsement of the government's redundancy program. We understand that some workers will take redundancies if they have the opportunity, but we do not believe that workers should be forced into redundancy if they do not wish to take it. Other options are available to some workers. We believe that workers have been unfairly targeted for redundancy. That is consistent with the approach we have taken all the way along.

The second point of the motion is that all redundancy packages offered to Totalcare workers should be at least equal to those offered to ACT Forest workers. This is where the government set the standard of an enhanced package that included quite a significant lump sum. I am not exactly sure of the amount, but I think it was about $15,000. We think the government ought to direct Totalcare to make sure that any workers who choose a redundancy in the scheme of things get at least a redundancy equal to the enhanced .package offered to ACT Forest workers. This will come at a cost, unquestionably.

I should explain how this motion came about. A large number of Totalcare workers are on strike today because of the position they find themselves in and because they are extremely upset about the way the whole matter has been handled. They came here this morning and sat quietly while we went about our business. Mr Osborne and I had a discussion about what we could do about this. I talked to union officials and some workers, and this motion was largely agreed between all of us as a way forward.

I apologise to members that the motion was not on the notice paper. We could not do that, but Mr Wood generously offered not to proceed with his matter and that gave us the opportunity to deal with this matter without interfering with anybody else's business any further than is necessary.

It is possible that what I propose will come at a cost to the government. I do not deny that. It is possible that if Totalcare is given a direction in relation to this matter they might say that there will be a cost to government. I will not run away from that. I think it

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