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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4216 ..

MS MacDONALD (continuing):

By contrast, it was just a matter of weeks into a Labor government before the dispute was resolved. If you would like a second piece of evidence as to how the Labor government approaches industrial relations matters in an honest and fair way, you need look no further than to the current wage negotiations. Despite all the choreography of negotiations between unions, employees and the government, Minister Corbell and the Labor government are talking in a constructive way and attempting to reward our dedicated public servants with a real wage increase-a real wage increase, I point out to members opposite.

Mr Corbell: As opposed to a real wage decrease, which is what members opposite delivered.

MS MacDONALD: That is right, Mr Corbell. I expect that a swift, sensible and satisfactory resolution is not too far away. However, my motion is not just about a better deal for the public service; it is about a better deal for all Canberra workers, regardless of their employer. My motion is about getting a better deal for the ACT, boosting the economy and making the territory an employer of choice. I can also say, from personal experience, that I worked for five years in the private sector in Canberra with a number of those employees and they also deserve a better deal, which, I would suggest, members opposite have continually ignored.

I fully expect to see Mr Smyth, Mr Pratt and their colleagues stand up some time in the next hour and bleat about an inability to afford the expansion of ACT long service leave entitlements to workers. I fully expect them to be sticking with their good mate Mr Peters in condemning an improvement in the entitlements and conditions of the Canberra work force. In doing so, however, they would be merely joining Mr Peters in doing two things. The first, and most obvious, would be in denying Canberra's work force better conditions. We expect that from them because they have no intention of doing anything but see the big end of town get bigger. The second would be in denying the ACT economy, Canberra businesses and our community an opportunity to attract energetic, skilled and committed people to our city.

To enable Assembly members to understand this issue, I am going to take the liberty of giving them a brief history lesson. Mr Peters, of course, would do well to take a few notes, as would any other potential detractors of the suggestion of extending the entitlement to long service leave and making it portable. Years ago, back in the 1950s, long service leave took its first steps in the evolutionary process. After a decade or more of hard work, a man could pack up his bags for four months and head back home to mother England. The three months of long service leave was a reward for dedicated and hard work. It meant that, after a decade of not seeing his English relatives, he could afford both the time and the money to jump on a ship for the six-week journey to the UK and, of course, the six-week return trip to Australia. Once there, annual leave of four weeks could be spent with parents planning the details for the next visit in just another decade's time.

Over the years, long service leave became a reward for faithful employment with a single employer. Workers still enjoyed a three-month break, but it was not necessarily spent on travelling to the ancestral home. Again, as time went on, those arrangements changed. Many workers now enjoy the entitlement of long service leave if they work within a single industry, not necessarily with the same employer. This motion is about trying to

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