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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-09 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:10): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Industrial Relations a question regarding fair work laws.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: The ACTU President, Ged Kearney, is hosting a forum today in Adelaide, and in preparation for that she told The Australian:

By attacking the basic rights and entitlements of government employees and planning forced retrenchments, the South Australian government has effectively breached the principles of the Fair Work laws. For the South Australian government to pass legislation allowing it to tear up a negotiated agreement sets an uneasy precedent for other states and employers.

I note that a further protest on this issue is planned for the ALP state convention on 27 November. The situation is reminiscent of the WorkCover cuts for which the government was condemned at a previous state convention but continued with nonetheless. The Maritime Union of Australia issued a statement online today, saying:

It is extraordinary that a Labor government would make a move like this to undermine collective bargaining and attack workers' rights—

and—

I would hope that Mike Rann is still a long way from becoming John Howard, but these appear to be remarkably similar tactics that he is using in this instance.

My questions are:

1. When the Sustainable Budget Commission recommendations were considered, why were work entitlements cut when trade missions to Puglia were retained?

2. What enterprise agreement negotiations are currently underway?

3. Will the government commit to abiding by the terms of negotiated agreements until March 2014 and not legislate away any further worker entitlements?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (15:12): We had the debate on these issues during the Statutes Amendment (Budget 2010) Bill and the Appropriation Bill, and I would have thought we had more than sufficient debate in that forum in relation to those particular issues. I do not see the need to repeat everything here.

The honourable member did ask a couple of other questions. I think one was about the Sustainable Budget Commission. The report of that commission has been released, and the government rejected many of its recommendations. Ultimately, it was up to the cabinet to determine which recommendations we would accept, and we did so on the basis of those that would have minimal impact upon the vast majority of South Australians.

As I have said in relation to the budget debates, if one looks at what is happening with the austerity measures in the UK, the United States, Spain, Greece, France and other parts of the world, this state and this country have largely avoided the worst of the impact of the global financial crisis. Those countries are now confronted with quite severe austerity measures. We have had to make some adjustment and we have done so in a way that we believe will have the minimum impact upon South Australian workers and their families. As I have challenged repeatedly during the budget debate, if the honourable member disagrees with the priorities, it is up to him to suggest what alternatives he might have.

In relation to enterprise agreements and the long service leave provisions that were particularly generous within the public sector—and I have made this point on a number of occasions—they were put into legislation as a result of a promise made at the time. The only way they can be altered is through changing that legislation, and that is just the reality of where those provisions exist.

In relation to enterprise agreements, there are a number of enterprise agreements under way at present. There is one with the ambulance employees. We have had one with the nurses, which I think is almost finalised if it has not been completely finalised. There are agreements in their final stages with the staff of members of parliament. We also have enterprise bargaining with police beginning shortly, and there will be a number of other enterprise agreements. In relation to those, the government, of course, will honour those particular agreements as we always have in the past.

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