Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are people in Gladstone who will be happy and people who will not be happy, but you will find in Gladstone that a lot of big companies are using AWAs or the individual contracts that were their forerunners. There was the great case, of course, at the Boyne smelter—this was some years ago now—where the employees were given the opportunity to have a workplace agreement or to stay on awards. A very robust campaign was mounted by a number of unions, including the ETU—with tents at the gates and pamphlets handed out to fellows coming to work for several days, if not weeks. Then they had the vote in the plant to decide whether or not they would go onto these workplace agreements or stay on awards. They voted, as I remember it, 83 per cent to 17 per cent in favour.

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