Garrett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee Recommittal Third Reading 
Garrett David: Employment Relations Amendment Bill — In Committee Recommittal Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:472] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 As a new member sitting here this debate on this bill illustrates a division in attitudes between the two sides of the House. On the Government side of which ACT is a part the majority of employers and employees are seen as good people. Both parties to the employment relationship by and large try to make things work. In that world employees do not run off to the Employment Relations Authority or the Mediation Service at the drop of a hat and employers do not sack people unless they really have to. The reason is that it is too much trouble apart from anything else and costs too much money. 
In the Opposition view of the employment relationship all employees—sorry it is still “workers” is it not—are downtrodden beings cowering under the yoke of the lord of the manor; all or at least most employers are willing to sack employees at the drop of a hat; many employers are sexual predators who put the word on young girls and if they turn them down they sack them; and many employers come to work and decide that they do not like the hairstyle or the eye colour of their employee that day so they should go home. Well in the real world—and by the real world I do not mean down at whatever today’s equivalent of Trades Hall is but the workplace that most people inhabit—the truth is probably somewhere in the middle but in my view it is a great deal closer to the Government’s view of things. 
As for the amendment I must confess as a new member to being totally bemused by the cacophony that erupted when it was passed. No doubt someone will explain to me later just why that was; I have been sitting here trying to work it out. From my perspective if it is a good idea on 1 April it must be a better idea on 1 March. It makes logical sense to me and I think that other than those watching and listening at Trades Hall it will make sense to the rest of the country. To me it is an example of the parliamentary process working. Amendments were put up on the Opposition side of the House but they were unpersuasive. I modestly say that it seems mine was persuasive. I thought that was how Parliament and democracy supposedly worked. There seems to be no point in delaying the implementation of a good idea. 
We have heard from the other side of the House extravagant predictions of what will happen. We did not quite get to predictions of suicide but we were close. This reminds me of the predictions that followed the passing of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991: extravagant predictions of mass sackings and all those kinds of things none of which came to pass. With the passing of time we no longer think that the removal of compulsory unionism is any big deal; it is just common sense. 
I am old enough to remember the last days of demarcation—that is a word that no one has heard for a while. In 1983 I was a trades assistant at the methanol plant for an engineering company. Yes some of us got our hands dirty. But I could not touch a strop because that was riggers’ work—that was demarcation. We no longer think about that because it is silly. It seems to me that before very long curtailing personal grievances for a short period will no longer seem very unusual at all and will seem an entirely sensible idea. 
As I said I have been bemused and confused—but I will work it out—as to why there was such a cacophony. I guess it can be only that the Labour Party was performing for another audience outside this House. Someone asked why we should not bring it in tomorrow or after the Royal assent—I think it was the Hon Lianne Dalziel. Well from my perspective that would be a good idea but I understand that in these days—where workers can no longer just read employment news in the paper—some logistical exercises need to be gone through to set things up so a period of delay is considered reasonable. The Government being made up of reasonable people would have rejected its being assented any earlier. 
It seems to me that this is a very sensible idea. It will be seen as unremarkable very shortly just as now is seen the idea that a trades assistant for a fitter cannot touch a strop because that is riggers’ work. Thank you.