Mr REED - 2000-08-16
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, I will take this opportunity to answer an earlier question from the honourable member concerning regards his emotive statement that public servants were about to lose two weeks leave. Totally wrong! Of course, we have just heard from the Chief Minister another example of the Labor Party’s misapprehension that if they say something and repeat it often enough it will become fact and become believed by Territorians. Well, this is another example where you have gone wrong.
Section 89A of the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act limits the scope of matters, commonly known as ‘allowable matters’, to be included in industrial awards of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The act also provides for the AIRC to review all current federal awards with a view to simplifying them to comply with the 20 allowable matters specified in section 89A.
Mr Stirling: Yes.
Mr REED: I got a ‘yes’. So he was not unaware of this. He has been mischievous, by his own admission.
Mr Stirling: That is how it came up, because of the simplification of the award process.
Mr REED: He is acknowledging that he knew what was happening. You dobbed your boss in, you goose!
The review has been under way since 1997. The matters that have been under negotiation, to mention a few, include definitions of ordinary time, grievance and dispute settling procedures, regular part-time employment, maternity and paternity leave, leave to attend industrial proceedings, recreation leave, applied flexibility provisions and facilitative provisions.
Mr Stirling: How many weeks for recreation leave?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr REED: He now has the hide to say ‘yes’ and admit that he knew that he was being mischievous in raising it in the first place.
Mr Stirling: You put four weeks in the award instead of six because you are going to knock them off after the election.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I warn the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr REED: Not only that, but by his own admission he has dobbed his boss in. He has clearly demonstrated that she too was being mischevious when the question was first asked of the Chief Minister this morning.
The matters are still under negotiation. There is no risk whatsoever to the recreation leave of public servants. No one else has been concerned about it, you goose, except you, being mischievous. Six weeks are included in the by-laws for Northern Territory public servants. They are well entrenched. The unions want it transferred to the award, and that is a matter of discussion. The commissioner is of the view …
Mr Stirling: And you have only put in four.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Does the minister have much more to go? I remind ministers that there is an opportunity after Question Time to answer questions that have been asked earlier on. I ask the minister to wind up as quickly as possible.
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, I am happy to do that because I think I have demonstrated clearly that by his own admission he was being mischievous. There is no threat to the awards in terms of the six weeks leave. Public servants will continue to receive those benefits. How they are applied. whether they are part of the federal award under the Workplace Relations Act or by other means, is simply the question. But they are there. They are safe and they will continue to exist except, of course, if in EBA discussions they want to trade off leave for some other benefit, as have the employees of the Power and Water Authority. They have reduced, for new employees commencing from 1 July this year, their recreation leave to five weeks a year. They have done that because they assessed some benefit to them in those EBA negotiations and they could use it as a tradable commodity. So it is entirely logical.
There is no threat to the public servants’ holiday. The opposition have been nothing but mischievous.
Section 89A of the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act limits the scope of matters, commonly known as ‘allowable matters’, to be included in industrial awards of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The act also provides for the AIRC to review all current federal awards with a view to simplifying them to comply with the 20 allowable matters specified in section 89A.
Mr Stirling: Yes.
Mr REED: I got a ‘yes’. So he was not unaware of this. He has been mischievous, by his own admission.
Mr Stirling: That is how it came up, because of the simplification of the award process.
Mr REED: He is acknowledging that he knew what was happening. You dobbed your boss in, you goose!
The review has been under way since 1997. The matters that have been under negotiation, to mention a few, include definitions of ordinary time, grievance and dispute settling procedures, regular part-time employment, maternity and paternity leave, leave to attend industrial proceedings, recreation leave, applied flexibility provisions and facilitative provisions.
Mr Stirling: How many weeks for recreation leave?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr REED: He now has the hide to say ‘yes’ and admit that he knew that he was being mischievous in raising it in the first place.
Mr Stirling: You put four weeks in the award instead of six because you are going to knock them off after the election.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I warn the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr REED: Not only that, but by his own admission he has dobbed his boss in. He has clearly demonstrated that she too was being mischevious when the question was first asked of the Chief Minister this morning.
The matters are still under negotiation. There is no risk whatsoever to the recreation leave of public servants. No one else has been concerned about it, you goose, except you, being mischievous. Six weeks are included in the by-laws for Northern Territory public servants. They are well entrenched. The unions want it transferred to the award, and that is a matter of discussion. The commissioner is of the view …
Mr Stirling: And you have only put in four.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Does the minister have much more to go? I remind ministers that there is an opportunity after Question Time to answer questions that have been asked earlier on. I ask the minister to wind up as quickly as possible.
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, I am happy to do that because I think I have demonstrated clearly that by his own admission he was being mischievous. There is no threat to the awards in terms of the six weeks leave. Public servants will continue to receive those benefits. How they are applied. whether they are part of the federal award under the Workplace Relations Act or by other means, is simply the question. But they are there. They are safe and they will continue to exist except, of course, if in EBA discussions they want to trade off leave for some other benefit, as have the employees of the Power and Water Authority. They have reduced, for new employees commencing from 1 July this year, their recreation leave to five weeks a year. They have done that because they assessed some benefit to them in those EBA negotiations and they could use it as a tradable commodity. So it is entirely logical.
There is no threat to the public servants’ holiday. The opposition have been nothing but mischievous.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016