Fed: Reith laments Democrats lack of support for IR bills

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2000
Fed: Reith laments Democrats lack of support for IR bills

CANBERRA, Aug 1 AAP - The Australian Democrats had criticised Labor for listening to
union spin doctors yet had accepted every lobbying campaign from the same union officials,
Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith said today.

Democrats leader Meg Lees has criticised the closed shop nature of the ALP national
conference in Hobart, saying 80 per cent of delegates were Labor parliamentary insiders,
unions, staffers and spin doctors.

Mr Reith agreed, saying the number of actual lay members of the ALP at the convention
was less than five per cent.

"Yet it is strange indeed for Meg Lees to criticise the ALP when in recent times the
decision-making process of the Democrats' party room and in the Senate has been to accept
every lobbying campaign by these same union officials to block the coalition's workplace
relations policy," he said in a statement.

The Democrats recently rejected anti-pattern bargaining legislation and have signalled
dissatisfaction with a number of other coalition industrial relations bills.

"If Meg Lees wants to distinguish the Democrats from the policy of the union officials
who make up the majority vote in the ALP convention, she should stop blocking the coalition's
1998 election mandate `More Jobs Better Pay' in the Senate - or at least be prepared to
negotiate on it," Mr Reith said.

AAP dep/mfh/mg/de

KEYWORD: ALP LEES

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