An Industrial Relations Commission Conference was held on 28 July 2004 as a result of PSA concerns that Government was not complying with Commission Recommendations to amend misleading material issued by Government.

Commissioner Doyle has late today issued a Statement which provides for the following:

“With respect to Recommendations 1 and 3 the Commission notes that within the very tight time frame prior to the commencement of the ballot for the proposed Enterprise Agreement, the parties will work together to give effect to these Recommendations.”

The Government indicated to the Commission that it would comply with Recommendations 1 and 3. Recommendation 1 provided for Government to amend its advice to its employees that in principle agreement had not been reached on nearly all of the matters. Members will recall that Government claimed that there were only 3 outstanding matters where PSA provided evidence that there were 20 outstanding matters.

Recommendation 3 provided for the Government to liaise with the PSA to put in place flexible arrangements for worksite meetings where members do not have access to electronic messaging facilities.

The Commission rescinded Recommendation 2 following Government's submission that “Security of employment was clearly within the domain of the proposed Enterprise Agreement”.

While the affect of this is to provide enforceability for security of employment provisions, PSA advises members that such security has already been assured by the Premier in a letter to the PSA of 23 August 2003 in which the Premier, Mike Rann states “I made a commitment to no forced redundancies in the Public Sector prior to the election and the Government will honor that promise.”

In practical terms as the ballot is being posted by the State Electoral Office on 30 July 2004, the above Government assurances are unlikely to have any significant impact in the provision of information to members.

The proposed Agreement is simply not good enough, has not been negotiated in good faith by Government, and should be rejected.

30 July 2004