Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise in the debate this afternoon to speak on this motion to refer the provisions of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill to a Senate committee. In particular there are a number of areas and facts I need to cover off on. This afternoon in this chamber what has been described in many arguments is a fallacy. We heard the view from the previous speaker, Senator Cash, that people, whether they be in organisations or whether they be workers, had nothing to fear. I can speak from some authority after having been for nearly half my working life, 19 years, a union official for three distinguished unions. The first was the Transport Workers Union Queensland branch. The second was the Queensland Police Union where I was the industrial officer. Then I was with the National Union of Workers Queensland branch, initially as an organiser, subsequently moving on as a senior organiser, then becoming branch secretary and then the assistant vice-president of the federal branch of that union. To some degree, even at the age of 18, I was following industrial relations. It was a subject I was interested in and it was an area where I saw changes in regard to what happened to workers and what happened to industrial laws when government changed.

As an example, I will reflect back to 1996 when the then Howard government came into this place and made changes to industrial laws which was the Workplace Relations Act 1996. As a result of that act there were a whole host of changes to the right of entry requirements to workplaces for organisations. There were changes to introduce individual contracts, which were known as Australian workplace agreements or AWAs. The point I am getting to in relation to this particular bill is the consistency with my home state of Queensland. In that year, what followed—

Senator Mason interjecting—

Thank you, Senator Mason. No doubt you will know the history that I am coming to. In the following year the then Queensland industrial relations minister—or it might have been the workplace relations minister—Santo Santoro mirrored the federal Workplace Relations Act 1996. He mirrored it to the extent that he did not have the competence to make fundamental changes. All he did was turn it over and add a new title. There were only three changes: the title of the act became the Workplace Relations Act 1997; the right of entry became 48 hours instead of 24 hours; and the name for Australian workplace agreements changed to QWAs, Queensland workplace agreements. Subsequently, the minister moved on and became a senator. I think to some extent the senator, at the time, fell foul of the standards that Prime Minister John Howard put in place and, I understand, had to leave this chamber. I am sure those on the other side might correct me—