Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is my first attempt at addressing the chamber from my new position. I rise to oppose the government’s attempts to water down or destroy the very successful ABCC today. This is, as we have just seen from the speech from the member for Longman, a campaign being run by union members for union bosses, not for the interests of actual workers on the ground. Let me just address a couple of points the member for Longman made in particular on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2009, the first being that those of us on this side do not care and nor does the ABCC about worker safety. It is an absolutely outrageous slur on anyone in this place to suggest that anyone would not care about the death of a worker, or the death of anyone for that matter. It is a suggestion that is beyond repute but not beyond those on the other side because that is the way they operate. It is a disgusting slur, it is not unusual, it is a CFMEU tactic, it is a Labor Party tactic; and it is not right.

Let us deal with OHS in the building and construction industry. The member for Longman comes from Queensland. As I understand, there has been a Labor government in Queensland all of this century. Who looks after OHS on work sites? Labor state governments. If you want to make a criticism of governments not caring about deaths in the construction industry, start looking closer to home, Member for Longman; start looking to those in your state government who seem to be more interested in getting kickbacks for services delivered on projects than they are in actually looking after your workers’ safety. If you want to start to make accusations about who cares or who does not care about workers and their safety, look closer to home. That is the first issue: state governments have the fundamental responsibility for OHS in this country.

An aspect of the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry was the establishment of the Federal Safety Commissioner, which this bill, as I understand, seeks to continue. So the link between safety on work sites, deaths in the construction industry and the ABCC is a deliberate slur in place of an argument. If you want to be critical of the OHS performance in your state, look at Premier Bligh, look at Premier Beattie and have a look at your state Labor governments who have run this country for the best part of the last 10 years. If you are serious about looking at safety, have a look at the record of your state Labor governments. Let us deal with that in the first instance. Let us deal with that slur that they continue over there because they have got no argument on this point. All they have got is a slur. If you want to look at safety, look at the performance of your state Labor governments. Any death on a work site is tragic. To suggest that anyone does not care about that is a complete and utter slur and should be withdrawn.

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