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

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. The last time the Australian Building and Construction Commission existed in Australia it improved productivity in the building and construction industry by 16.8 per cent. It saved consumers $7½ billion. Yet the Leader of the Opposition when he was the minister in the Gillard government abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Given its obvious importance to the economy and to 1.1 million Australians employed in the building and construction industry, one wonders why the Leader of the Opposition abolished it. I may have found a clue buried in the volumes of the evidence provided to the Heydon royal commission, and that was an email sent by Dean Mighell, who will be very familiar to many people in the House for a number of reasons. Dean Mighell, the former long-term secretary of the ETU, the Electoral Trades Union, provided an email to the royal commission that he had sent to other state secretaries in Victoria in mid- to late-2010. In it he writes:

Given that the Federal ALP is desperate for funds, surely we can say that we will help them if and only if, they abolish the ABCC. I can tell you for a fact that unions are donating to Federal labor for outcomes not promises …

When he was asked by the royal commissioner what unions were engaging in this process of donating to the ALP for 'outcomes not promises', he said, 'I believe that the CFMEU were again seeking the abolition of the ABCC as a policy outcome.' So there we are, Mr Speaker. And surprise, surprise, it was done by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the minister responsible. The unions gave money on the basis of policy outcomes.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

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