Page 793 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
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really just looking for someone who may have suffered an injury so that they can wheel them out for television. It is a shameful reflection upon the values of Sharan Burrow, and I hope that it is not a continuing reflection on the values of the ACTU.
If people in this chamber believe that the only solution is to shift all the blame to one party, how are we ever going to seek to improve things? There are many people in this chamber who have first-hand knowledge of how the industrial movement operates and there are people here who understand what has gone on with building unions in the past. I do not want to see a return to the past and the thuggery of the BLF; they have gone. But there are still people who carry their logos and their allegiance and conduct themselves in the same way.
It is absurd for Mr Gentleman, with the help of Dr Foskey, to call on the federal government to revoke the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act. He is just plain wrong to assert that it jeopardises the safety of thousands of construction workers employed in the ACT. Indeed, his motion is counterproductive. It would lead to more accidents and the return of the thuggery of the BLF. I suggest to Mr Gentleman that he cease trying to use this Assembly to promote the cause of his union masters and instead do something constructive—if you do not mind the pun—to promote the broader public interest. I remind him that he represents all people in his electorate and not the narrow agenda of the diminishing union movement.
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (4.42): I rise to speak in favour of this excellent motion from Mr Gentleman. The federal government’s Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act is another plank in the Howard government’s ideological attack on ACT workers. It is probably overdue that we as an Assembly condemn the federal government for their ideologically driven agenda to undermine the building industry in the ACT. Despite this legislation breaching countless international agreements, the government have been unable to demonstrate any evidence of why it is necessary.
Following on from Mrs Dunne’s speech, I would just say that I think you always know that you are on a winner with a motion when your opposition resort to name calling, which I think there was quite a bit of going on in Mrs Dunne’s speech just now.
Australia is a signatory to numerous international conventions that oblige the federal government to protect the right to strike. Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enshrines that right. Further, Australia was a founding member of the tripartite International Labour Organisation, the peak international labour law body made up of employer, employee and government representatives. The ILO’s conventions on the freedom of association and right to organise and on the right to organise and collectively bargain also protect this right.
In 1999 the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations pointed out that Australia’s existing law unacceptably limited the right of workers to strike in support of their economic and social interests. The Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act amends this law and further undermines the already limited ability to strike. The BCII act makes industrially motivated industrial action unlawful. The definition of “industrially motivated” is ridiculously broad and virtually captures any and all motives for industrial action. This includes taking any
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