RAIL, TRAIN AND BUS UNION

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (14:39): My question is again to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Minister, what action do you intend to take in response to plans for industrial action by Adelaide's tram and train drivers?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: Yesterday, in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, approval was given for the Australian Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union to hold a secret ballot of members in early December on 4, 24 and 48-hour rolling stoppages, bans on fare evasion duties, and other matters. During the hearing, Ashley Waddell, from the union, said: 'Enough is enough.' He also expressed his frustration on ABC Radio last night, and confirmed that the union has been trying to negotiate a collective agreement with TransAdelaide since February this year.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (14:40): I hope the member for MacKillop, who claimed (by interjection in the house yesterday) that they were covered by the state system, has now found out that it was the federal industrial commission. We recently took action to head off a quite unreasonable and, I think, illegal piece of industrial action called for by comrade McFetridge—and I can indicate to the house that we are checking to see what size braces to get him, and we will provide him with a loudspeaker so that he can yell his union thuggery slogans. However, we managed to convince the union not to listen to comrade McFetridge when he urged them to take industrial action last week.

The sad thing about this is that the opposition should understand, particularly with a federal election looming, that the union is doing precisely what John Howard requires it to do in negotiating an enterprise bargain. The fact that they do this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean the inevitability of industrial action. These are John Howard's laws. We agree that he has the wrong laws; they would not be doing this under the system we had in place, they would not be going off to seek the right to have a secret ballot. We would probably let them have a secret ballot if they wanted to have one, it seems a reasonable thing.

The bottom line is that this is what they are required to do by John Howard. If the honourable member has a problem with what the Rail, Tram and Bus Union is doing I suggest he takes it up with John Howard, because what the union is doing is abiding by his law. The truth is that this is an issue on which the Liberals will have any position that suits them—we should not pay too much in wages because poor Kevin has to manage his budget but, of course, we should automatically roll over to any demand for wages by the union. The reality is that what we always have to do is enter into enterprise bargaining with those unions and negotiate an outcome that satisfies both groups. I understand the union made the statement that—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Since February, yes. There is a period running up to the end of the enterprise bargains when people negotiate for a new one; it is pretty ordinary stuff. The bottom line is that we are the party that tries to be fair to workers but we also simply cannot roll over for the unions—as the honourable member, comrade Williams and comrade McFetridge would have us do. We do not do that, and the reason is because we have been the government dedicated to balancing the budget, the first government in a very long time to have one balanced budget after another. The comrades on the other side—who are in the hands of the unions, as we well know—could never balance a budget because they were all running around in their braces giving in to their union mates.