Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Following the member for Petrie's rather confused contribution to the debate on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011, it is incumbent on me to say, firstly, that it is not a workplace safety issue; it is properly the jurisdiction of occupational and health and safety legislation. This is really about the ABCC, commissioned in 2005, which came out of a royal commission which found that there were over 100 types of unlawful or inappropriate conduct in the building and construction industry. The member for Petrie carried on about workplace safety. But what about the unlawful conduct which was found by a very thorough royal commission, and their recommendation that, without somebody with the power to do something about entrenched unlawful behaviour in the building and construction industry, we would continue to see declines in productivity and obstacles in the place of properly conducted economic activity? The corporations the member for Petrie refers to must comply with occupational health and safety regulations or their employees go to jail. What about the people in Australia found by the Cole royal commission to be engaging in unlawful activity hindering our economic progress?

We know that the ABCC has been a tough cop on the beat and, yes, was given wide-ranging powers by the Howard government. Why? Because the ABCC, which works quite successfully, has helped the building and construction industry to increase productivity by 10 per cent since it was set up. The biggest challenge in Australian economic industrial relations today is how to lift productivity. We have seen a well-functioning body lift productivity in this sector by 10 per cent; yet the government of the day is proposing to weaken and undermine the role of this body in the building and construction sector. Why would it be doing that? Why would the government of the day undermine an institution that is lifting the productivity rates in a critical sector of our economy like building and construction? We know why the Labor government is undermining this body. Indeed, if you do not think that adding 33 additional procedures into the ABCC is undermining the effectiveness of this body, then I think you are absolutely crazy—

See this speech in context