Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

seeking to honour our commitment to the Australian people by reintroducing this bill.

The government acknowledges the important role registered organisations play in workplaces in Australia. These organisations—unions and employer organisations—stand in positions of trust. To remain strong, it is vital that they are seen to do the right thing by their members. Yet the truth is that officials of some of these organisations have been in flagrant abuse of the responsibilities they owe to their members. They have misused union funds for personal gain. They have rorted membership rolls to increase their clout within the Labor Party. They have ripped off hardworking members to indulge their own political or personal interests. Is it any wonder that union representation in the workforce, particularly the private sector workforce, is at an all-time low? Is it any wonder that there should be a crisis of confidence in this culture on display by too many senior officials in the union movement?

The coalition has repeatedly sought to honour the commitment it made to the Australian people to improve the governance and accountability of registered organisations. This is a policy we have now taken to two elections. The case for change has been made. The gross breaches of trust and financial impropriety displayed, for example, by officials of the Health Services Union provided the initial impetus for reform. One senior official is serving a jail sentence; another is currently facing dozens of charges; and yet another has been penalised nearly half a million dollars for his indiscretions.

Since then, the findings of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption have revealed myriad examples of bad behaviour by union officials. The current system of regulation is doing very little to deter them. As many judges have noted, they treat the small fines imposed under the current law like parking tickets—a cost of doing business. The royal commission revealed how officials from the National Union of Workers used union credit and corporate cards to pay for dating services, holidays, corporate box seats at major events, toys, hairdressing and other personal services. Officials from the Transport Workers Union used members' funds to purchase two luxury foreign cars and changed redundancy rules to ensure they could keep the cars for their personal use even after they left the union. The TWU also appointed its own official to a concurrent position at its superannuation body. He was paid $93,400 for 2½ days work over the course of the year. The Leader of the Opposition, when he was Secretary of the AWU, accepted a company donation for over $40,000 to pay for a political operative to manage his campaign to win a seat in the federal parliament, and he failed to disclose it until two days before he was due to give evidence at the royal commission. The Leader of the Opposition's successor at the AWU, Cesar Melhem, repeatedly issued false invoices from the AWU to companies, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the same time, the unions received lists of the names of the employees of those companies to be added to the union's membership roll. Many of them had no knowledge that they had become union members. Others had their union dues paid by the company when they had already paid them themselves.

Those opposite would have us believe that the Heydon royal commission uncovered just a few bad apples. It is true that many union officials are law-abiding and well motivated, but there are systemic issues here, undeniably. In the words of commissioner Heydon:

It would be utterly naive to think that what has been uncovered is anything other than the small tip of an enormous iceberg.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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