Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the acting Minister for Employment. I refer the minister to the editorial in yesterday's Herald Sun regarding alleged union corruption. I ask: what action is the government taking to ensure the highest levels of probity in our community organisations, and what challenges are there to this approach?

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

I do thank the member for Casey for his question. The member for Casey might have been thinking that the blood that is being spilled, at the moment, is all being spilled in The Killing Season that will be beginning next Tuesday night, on the ABC, from reports in today's press. It looks like it will be quite a good program to watch. In fact, there is plenty of blood being spilled in the royal commission into trade union corruption.

The member for Casey might want to continue to keep his eye on that, because he asks a very important question. It is a question not just for me but also for the Leader of the Opposition, and I will come to him. Unfortunately, in the testimony that is being received in the royal commission into trade union corruption, very serious allegations have been made against Cesar Melhem, a member of the Victorian parliament, who was the state secretary of the Victorian AWU

There is a very serious claim that he sold workers down the river and saved a company called Clean Event $6 million of labour costs in exchange for $25,000 a year of fees to the AWU. This is a very serious allegation, because the workers at Clean Event did not pay as much as they perhaps could have. Because of Cesar Melhem's actions, they were not the highest paid workers in our society. They are very average workers, being paid low rates of pay. The government does take that seriously, and I would have thought that the Leader of the Opposition, as a former union leader—in fact, he was the national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union at the time when Cesar Melhem was the state secretary of the Victorian union—would take that seriously as well. He can demonstrate how seriously he takes that in two ways: he can today distance himself from Cesar Melhem and the allegations that are being made and he can answer the question as to what, if anything, he knew about this practice when he was the national secretary of the AWU.

I am not suggesting that the allegations pertain to the actions of the Leader of the Opposition. But he could deal with this in two ways today: firstly, he could make it clear that, as the national secretary of the AWU he knew nothing of this practice or any other practices and, secondly, he could support the registered organisations bill in the Senate right now. That will stop these kinds of dishonest practices, because the Registered Organisations Commission supports honest union leaders and the workers, and the Labor Party is the obstacle to its passage. The Leader of the Opposition could really put his money where his mouth is and pass that bill and show that he cares about workers.