PM Transcripts

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2 SJAN 1968-
FOR PRESS: AR~ P. M. No. 10/ 1968
POSTAL DISPUTE: UNION'S CONDITIONS UNACCEPTABLE
Statement by the Prime Minister, Senator John Gorton
At approximately 9 p. m. tonight the Government
received a telegram from the Executive of the A. IP. W. U. stating that
the Executive would instruct its members to resume normal work
but only if the Government would agree to four conditions.
The first condition is that the mail driver previously
dismissed should be reinstated and this has been agreed by the
Government days ago.
The second condition is that immediately after the
resumption of normal work the Public Service Board would hold
a conference with the Union on their pay claims and the Union
has already been told that this would happen.
The third and fourth conditions were that the Public
Service Board would give a decision before the conference
concluded and that if their decision was unacceptable to the
Union the Government should direct that the matter be referred
to the Conciliation and Arbitration Comm~ issioner.
No Government could accept dictation that the Public
Service Board be directed to give a decision before the conclusion
of a conference on pay claims although we have given an undertaking
that there will be no deliberate or undue delay in reaching a
decision. Nor could any Government accept the proposition that
existing legislation be ignored and that the dispute should
bypass the properly constituted authority namely the Public
Serv-ice Arbitrator and go direct to the Conciliation and
Arbitration Comirission.
If the Union is dissatisfied with the Board's decision
the matter should go, in accordance with existing legislation,
to the Public Service Arbitrator after which the full process of
arbitration becomes available.
The Government hopes that the Union will adopt this
course, which has always been and remains open to it.
But in the meantime the mails must begin to move and
the Postmaster-General and th6 Minister for Labour and National
Service, who are handling this dispute, will take whatever steps
are necessary to this end.
CANBERRA 18th January, 1968.