Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a little bit of hypocrisy there from the member for Wakefield, given he actually spoke about the Land 400 defence contract in his contribution. I just want to put on the record that the Victorian government is trying to push that contract into central Melbourne by putting to the defence primes that Fishermans Bend be the preferred location—very disappointing. The member for Corio has been absolutely pathetic in the way he has stood up for our city in our region and not fighting for our region to make sure that we land some of those jobs in Geelong, in Corangamite and in our wonderful region. Shame on Daniel Andrews, shame on local Labor MPs and shame on Labor's shadow defence minister, the member for Corio, who has absolutely and fundamentally failed the people of Geelong.

I want to correct the record when it comes to the member for Wakefield's contribution: this is actually a decision of the defence primes; it is not a decision of the Department of Defence and nor is it a decision for the Victorian government. The incentive packages, however, are every important, and what a disappointment it is that the Victorian government, in a secret plan, is trying to push all of those jobs into Fishermans Bend and is not standing up for regional Victoria, including my region.

This bill before the House today, the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill, is a very important part of our focus on driving jobs in the building and construction sector, which employs one million Australians. That is why our government, last year, re-established the Australian Building and Construction Commission. This is crucial to driving reform and boosting productivity. The building code is fundamental to our objective to make sure that we can start seeing a construction sector which is thriving, and we have not seen that under the previous Labor government.

This bill amends the expiry of the transitional grace period from 28 November 2018 to 31 August 2017 for enterprise agreements made before the building code commenced on 2 December 2016. So, while new enterprise agreements made after 2 December 2016 must comply with the code, building industry participants covered by existing enterprise agreements will now have until 31 August 2017 to ensure their agreements are code compliant. This is very reasonable period of time. Building companies have been on notice for a very significant period of time—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would ask that members opposite stop interjecting. The members are being quite rude and, frankly, it is absolutely inappropriate.

See this speech in context