Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

This was done before the election. We won the election and we have a mandate to do both of those things. We want to support honest union bosses and remove the bad apples from the union bosses' barrel who give unions a bad name. Now what is wrong with that? What is wrong with trying to remove from the barrel of bad apples those union bosses who give good union bosses a bad name? There are very good unions and there are good union bosses, and their reputation should not be stained by the dodgy practices of union bosses who are not doing the right thing.

We want to end the practice of secret payments, unlawful payments and secret commissions to trade union slush funds and their associated entities. We want to end the practice that allowed, for example, the cleaners who worked for Cleanevent having their penalty rates traded away in exchange for cash payments and lists to the union which were then used for membership purposes within the ALP—one of the greatest industrial scandals in Australia's recent history, carried on by the AWU.

Labor, by contrast, have a very weak policy in this area. Not only are they opposing the Australian Building and Construction Commission; they are also opposing the Registered Organisations Commission. They were lukewarm in their support of the royal commission and in fact have not supported the recommendations that the royal commission handed down. Their policy in this area includes tougher sanctions for the auditor than it does for the dodgy union boss. In fact, the only criminal sanction included in the Labor Party's new policy in this area is on the auditor, not the dodgy union boss. The auditor gets a criminal sanction. The auditor can go to prison. The dodgy union boss is allowed to escape unscathed. They may have a civil penalty but certainly not a criminal penalty.

The only side of the House that is serious about cleaning up the union movement through the Registered Organisations Commission is this side of the House. While the economy is in transition, we need safe and fair workplaces. We need unions that are working for the workers' interests, not for their own interests. If you want a clean and fair workplace then you need to vote for the coalition.

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