Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the amendments that have been moved to this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2], for several reasons. Without the amendments, this bill fails to do what the government is intending to do. It is simply more red tape that is not only opposed by people in this House but also opposed by industry organisations, employer groups unions—those hardworking unions that the previous member said that he was here to stand up for.

Let's just for a moment reflect on what the previous member said in this House. He suggested very early on, by interjecting and calling this bill red tape, that I was engaging in thuggery, bringing thuggery into this place and being intimidating. The previous speaker also said that it is like alcoholism, so being like an alcoholic I cannot see the problem that is going on, and that the values of union officials are being corrupted because of what is going on in the union movement.

I have never in my life been called the thug. Never in my life has it been suggested that I am intimidating. When I was actively involved in a union—representing some of our hardest working and lowest paid workers, cleaners—and when I worked and talked about industry reform, I was never referred to as a union thug. The government likes to throw around that term, whether it be in question time or whether it be up in the Federation Chamber. It is used by every individual member who gets up to speak on this issue from the government. When you say that this bill is supposed to support the good union officials, you are also in your same speech and comments calling them union thugs. Which is it? You cannot have it both ways.

The previous speaker and government speakers say that union members should get behind this bill and support it, because they believe it is good governance. It is not. It is purely and simply a way in which to attack the union movement and those involved in the union movement. This bill and what it will do has been opposed by employer organisations time and time again, but yet the government brings forward this bill again to this House in this last sitting week before the session ends. Why? It is purely and simply politically motivated. It is not good governance and it is not about ensuring that we have safer workplaces. It is not about, as the government tries to suggest, supporting good union officials.

Let's us just look at who they have attacked in this place. I just do not know who they mean by these good union officials, because they continue to attack every single union that has ever stood up to represent their members. This government in this place and the other place have attacked childcare workers. They have attacked United Voice for daring to say that we should have a national quality framework. Whether it be in question time or through the committee process, they have attacked United Voice and childcare workers for daring to say that they should have professional pay and respect for their skills and for daring to say that there should be ratios in our childcare centres to ensure that we have a safe ratio of children to educators.

Another union this government has attacked is the teachers' union, the AEU. They have also attacked the Independent Education Union. They have stood in this place in question time and in other debates and dared to attack teachers and their union for saying, 'I give a Gonski. We want to see more funding our schools.' That is a measure and reform that would make teaching easier not just by having the resources to support the students but also by helping every single school student in this country.

When they stand here and say that they are standing up for good unions, they should name the unions that they think are good unions. That is because every single day this government will come in here and demonise another union and another group of union members for advocating for the rights of their members, advocating for the rights of Australians and advocating for quality issues like in early childhood education and funding for our schools.

Another union that has been attacked in this place is the nurses' union. They are people who make sure if we are sick and we are in hospital, then we get the help that we need. They have attacked the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation for standing up and saying that they support PPL. They want to see the current Paid Parental Leave scheme continued. That is another union that this government has attacked for standing up against bad government policy, where this government wants to cut the amount of support that new mothers have with their newborn babies.

Another union that this government has attacked time and time again is the TWU, the Transport Workers' Union. They represent our truck drivers, who have the most unsafe workplace in the country: our Australian roots. If you work in the trucking industry, you are more likely than any other industry to have a workplace injury or death. Our roads are not as safe as they need to be. This government, through their reviews in this place, has attacked reforms that the TWU have pushed for in their Safe Rates campaign. That is the safety remuneration tribunal that was set up under the previous government through the active lobbying of industry and the union involved, the TWU. This government has attacked them at any chance they have got to say that that was just a union campaign to support their union mates. That is wrong. It was about road safety. This government decided to attack that union.

This government attacks the MUA. In fact, it will bring up the MUA a number of times in this debate. The MUA purely and simply want there to be shipping jobs, maritime jobs, in this country. The MUA stand up and say, 'We want our industry to exist in Australia. We want the industry to employ Australians.' This government seeks to attack that union.

Whether it be our childcare workers, our teachers, our nurses, our ambos, our truck drivers, our construction workers, the people who work really hard in hospitality or the people who work really hard in manufacturing, the government seek to attack them because they are the union. At the end of the day, a union is a group of workers coming together to have a collective voice and say in their workplace and their industry. Despite the rhetoric of the government saying that this is about supporting good unions, they will stand up here day after day and rip down every union that exists in this country, to the extent that they ripped down the AMA when the AMA stood up and said that they were opposed to a GP tax.

This government's actions do not match its own rhetoric. If it is serious about supporting unions, it would not be putting this bill forward. It would not, time and time again in question time, time and time again in this House and in the other place, attack unions. Why does it attack unions? I have a clear example of one of the reasons why I believe this government spends so much time attacking unions. I think this example highlights and goes to the heart of who this government is and who it is really trying to protect. It is a case involving the CFMEU and temporary workers. The CFMEU exposed a case in Melbourne where people who were here on 457 and 417 visas, working for a particular construction company, were being underpaid. They were being paid as little as $4 an hour. The CFMEU engaged the Fair Work Ombudsman to start investigating this case of exploitation of workers on a subclass of visa within a workplace here in Australia.

The Fair Work Ombudsman thus far has recovered $400,000 in back pay. So the CFMEU was right. These workers were being underpaid. The Fair Work Ombudsman has been investigating and has ordered the company to pay at least $440,000 in back pay. The CFMEU were a good union, as this government says it is here to stand up for. The CFMEU investigated. They advocated. They got the Fair Work Ombudsman involved to help clean up this clear case of worker exploitation. Yet what has happened since as a result? They were investigated by the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate, asking where their right of entry was and did they enter the workplace appropriately.

Rather than supporting the good unions, the good union officials, that are doing their work of exposing the exploitation going on in some of our workplaces, that government sends in the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate and tries to push through the ABCC in this House, which seeks not to investigate the worker exploitation going on in the construction industry but only to investigate union organisers, the good union people that this government claims that it represents.

Why are the government so interested in this particular case, of all the worker visa exploitation cases that we are seeing day after day being exposed in the media? Perhaps it is because the company who have been involved in this case, who have been ordered by the Fair Work Ombudsman to pay back money, who have been found guilty of exploiting people on temporary worker visas, are in fact major supporters of the Australian Liberal Party. The company at fault in this particular case donated $400,000 to the Liberal Party, according to the most recent AEC disclosures. No wonder the Acting Minister for Employment in this place stands up in question time and has a go at the CFMEU. No wonder in the other place they move motions condemning the CFMEU and the organisers involved in this case. They are protecting their own backs, because this company that has been found guilty of ripping off workers is in fact a Liberal Party donor.

It is not the first time that this has been exposed. There is a real reason why this government seeks to shut down the union movement, to silence them, to tie them up in red tape and to have a go at them. It is because they expose what this Liberal Party is really about. What is going on in our workplaces at the moment needs to be the focus of this government. This government has turned its back on what is going on in some of Australia's largest workplaces. This government is not taking seriously the exploitation that is going on with temporary workers in this country. As I have said, where is the royal commission into the worker exploitation going on in some of our workplaces? Where is the investigation going on into the modern slavery that is occurring in some of our workplaces? People have come here in good faith to work—they may have taken a gap year from their home country and come here as a migrant worker on a 457 visa or a 417 visa—and, rather than getting the same wages and conditions as Australian workers, time and time again we have found that they are used as cheap slave labour, going in and undercutting the conditions of Australian workplaces.

It is not just the CFMEU example that I have got here. There are examples at the farm gate that have been exposed in the Australian media and are being investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman. There are instances on our farms. There are instances in manufacturing. In the poultry industry, it is particularly bad, whether it be Baiada chicken factories or Hazeldene's in my electorate. There are problems in the meatworks industry. There are problems in the construction industry. There are problems in the cleaning and the security industries. We are seeing time and time again the exploitation of foreign workers being exposed. The first people to speak up for those workers are the unions—the union officials and the union members—who are outraged about the exploitation that is occurring in these workplaces. Yet the government, rather than working with the good unions that it claims that it is here today supporting, it demonises them, it calls them thugs, it says that they are intimidating, it says that they are only concerned with their self-interest, when that could not be further from the truth. What we are seeing going on in our workplaces is the real battle that this government should be looking at. They should not be engaging in royal commissions that try to go after, shame and slam a few individuals. They should be going after the employers and the subcontractors that use the current situation to exploit temporary workers.

When it comes to bashing unions, when it comes to demonising their opposition, this Prime Minister has form. We know that from what he did when he was the employment minister and the things that he used to say in the media. He used to say that unions engaged in industrial and economic sabotage, that the unions were the ones that were militant and bringing the country to its knees. If he is serious then drop the rhetoric where he has his members here standing up and saying they are here to support good unions.

The government needs to drop the act that they are standing up for working people and drop the act that they are standing up for good union officials. They fail every day to stand up and congratulate the work of good unions.

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