Contracting Out Dumps Disabled Workers

Wayne Berry - Opposition Spokesperson on Industrial Relations

Media Statement - 27 October 1999

The Chief Minister has been forced to admit that contracting arrangements which arise from government moves to a contestable public sector (code for contracting out) have and will continue to disadvantage disabled workers, Labor's Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Wayne Berry said today.

"This admission clearly takes 'caring' out of the Carnell Government's vision of a clever caring capital," Mr Berry said.

"The Canberra community was recently ashamed to find that a number of disabled workers lost their jobs in the contracting out of Cityscape services by the government.

"The Chief Minister claims to be a sympathetic employer of disabled workers but the failure of the government to insert special provisions in contracts demonstrates that a contestable public service ranks disabled workers as a forgotten class.

"Contracting out of public services was the Hallmark of the infamous Kennett style of government which Kate Carnell seems so attached to. What does it take to convince the Chief Minister that her approach to disabled workers is unacceptable," Mr Berry concluded.