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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-11-14 Daily Xml
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Enterprise Bargaining

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:04): Question time is much more enjoyable than it used to be, I have to say. My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer update the house regarding a meeting he held recently with AEU reps on enterprise bargaining negotiations?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Let the Treasurer speak.

The Hon. J.E. Hanson: Are you on Instagram, Rob? Have you checked Instagram? There might be stuff on there you don't like, too.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hanson, we have all heard that. Let's move on. I would like to hear from the Treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:05): Thank you; so would I, Mr President. I thank the honourable member for his question. It is correct that I had a meeting, I think last Friday afternoon, a very cordial and productive discussion with my friends and colleagues from the leadership of the AEU, where we discussed matters of shared interest, in particular the enterprise bargaining negotiations.

As I acknowledged last week in response to a question from an honourable member, to be fair to the AEU representatives, I think there have now been more than 20 meetings between government negotiators and AEU representatives, and the very early meetings did not make as much progress as many would have wished. That was because there was a newly elected government, we were bedding down a budget and the government negotiators were obviously not in a position to give too much detail in terms of decisions that had clearly not yet been taken by the government.

Can I say in general terms something I outlined to the AEU leadership, and I know that they were warmly supportive of this particular decision from the government: we have established a new process with the industrial relations directorate within Treasury. The process is that, 12 months prior to the expiration of an enterprise bargaining arrangement, as Treasurer I will write to ministers reminding them that, within six months prior to the expiration of an enterprise agreement, their department or agency needs to have a management position on the sorts of issues they wish to raise with employee associations in terms of enterprise bargaining agreements so that, as we enter the end period of one enterprise agreement, the government is in a position to engage constructively with union representatives.

It seems just to be a common-sense proposal, but it might shock members to know that, under the 16 years of the former Labor government, it was not a policy proposition the former government adopted. I think the Minister for Health would be aware that there were various agreements with SASMOA where, when you had discussions with them, they said, 'They have been there and they have not been renegotiated for two or three years, and there has been no action by the government and government bureaucrats in terms of engaging constructively with union representatives.'

I think that is an appalling practice in terms of governance, and it treats employee associations with disrespect, frankly, in relation to what constructive enterprise bargaining arrangements should be. So as I said, the AEU representatives, whilst they would not have warmly embraced everything that we discussed at the meeting, nevertheless warmly embraced that particular changed policy approach from the new government to engaging with the employee associations on enterprise bargaining arrangements.

In relation to the other issues, it is fair to say, without going into the detail, that the AEU restated their position on a number of issues. I sought information from them and they sought information from me in relation to the government negotiations. They provided an update in terms of the most recent meeting, and I took away a number of issues for engagement with the government negotiators in terms of future discussions. Hopefully, we can arrive at a mutually agreed compromise position in terms of the bargaining arrangements.

The final point that I will raise, and I think it was raised with me last week, is that I did take the opportunity to express my concerns about the behaviour of one AEU rep from Woodville High School, whom I did not name. Without going into the detail of the discussion, the AEU leadership were aware of the concerns that I had expressed. I sought no specific undertaking from them at that particular meeting.

I did, however, highlight the fact that the government, and I as the responsible minister, view dimly that sort of behaviour by union representatives, that is, engaging students in a political way within their classroom in furtherance of their industrial cause. As I said, I sought no specific response in relation to that other than indicating to them that, having identified it publicly, if it was to occur again I would continue to call out to union representatives in a public way if that behaviour was to continue. I would hope that the AEU representatives would take that on notice and engage constructively.

As I said to them, we obviously respect their lawful right to protest against a government's position in relation to enterprise bargaining in a lawful way. That is, they can protest outside a minister's offices, electorate offices and in the streets, and indeed do whatever is their lawful entitlement to do so—we acknowledge that—but they certainly, in my view, have no entitlement to adopt the sort of approach that the AEU rep at Woodville High School flagged she was going to adopt with the students in her classroom.

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