Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will always consider legislation on its merits, and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 has none. It is simply the latest salvo in the Liberals' long-running war on unions, and it exposes a rotten core of hypocrisy that lies at the heart of this wretched, hollow government. If only this government tackled corporate malfeasance with the same ardour that it reserves for unions—dodgy finance planners who rip off retirees, dodgy employers who make workers return half their wages, crooks who don't pay their workers superannuation, dodgy banks that ruin small-business people and lives. No, this bill doesn't tackle any of that, because they are the big Liberal donors, the untouchables. This government and this Prime Minister, an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, would rather run a mile than take on their friends in big finance. This bill instead targets unions: democratic organisations formed by workers to pursue fairness in the workplace, organisations that campaign for better pay, for safer workplaces, for workplaces that do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, religion or sexuality. This bill targets organisations that give workers a voice in the way that workplaces function.

This bill doesn't stop dodgy corporate directors from staying in business, but it does restrict the ability of union members to choose their elected union representatives. This bill doesn't give the Federal Court the power to wind up a corrupt business, but it does hand judges the power to shut down a democratically organised union. This bill doesn't demand that a corporate amalgamation be in the public interest, but it does demand it of unions. Hypocrisy and the Liberals' deep-seated ideological hatred of unions lie at the heart of this bill. In recent months this government has exposed its inability to function in the 21st century. It's failing to back the science that proves the reality of climate change. It's failing to support the principle that every Australian deserves equality under Australian law. It's failing to roll out the best technology that money can buy for Australia's broadband. With this bill, it is failing to support Australian workers and their right to organise for better pay and fairer workplaces.

The Liberals have never liked unions, but the rabid hatred is somewhat new. The founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, even represented the Waterside Workers Federation as a barrister. He'd be run out of the party these days. As Paul Keating remarked in 2007, there was no repugnancy of trade unionism for Menzies. But the Liberal Party in 2017 does not just hate trade unions, it fears them; and it is most afraid of unions that are the most effective at securing fair pay and safer worksites for their members. The CFMEU and MUA are tough unions with tough members who work in tough industries with tough employers. The industries that these unions' members work in are hazardous places where poor safety can lead to serious injury and death. Before unions organised, mining, construction, forestry, energy and seafaring were death trap industries. Workers died by the score, year after year, until workers said, 'Enough!' They organised themselves into unions to demand better pay and better safety.

But unionisation never came easy. Much blood has been spilled in the past 200 years, the vast majority of it belonging to workers and their families—murdered by corporations and their militias in a relentless attempt to prevent workers standing together. In the United States, between 1850 and 1959 more than 1,000 workers and their families were killed by authorities at various events including strikes and rallies. From 1877 to 1915 another 25 union men were hanged, only to be either posthumously declared innocent or to have the cases against them exposed as shams and political circuses. One of the most egregious injustices was against the Molly Maguires, the striking coalminers of Pennsylvania, in 1877 to 1879. The mine corporation they were striking against initiated an investigation using a private detective agency that it employed. A private police force arrested 20 men, and private attorneys—not state prosecutors—prosecuted the men, who were then hanged. One hundred years later in Pennsylvania the governor said, 'It is impossible for us to imagine the plight of the 19th century miners in Pennsylvania's anthracite region. We can be proud of the men known as the Molly Maguires—those martyred men of labour.'

This is not all ancient history. Similar struggles are being waged right now, this very day, across developing nations, and for the same reasons: workers simply demanding safer workplaces and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Those of us on this side of the House know that this is a never-ending struggle: that whenever we relax our guard, the corporations and their lickspittles in this House will be there to put profit before safety. The Prime Minister and the right-wing rump that runs the modern Liberals are focused on destroying Australian unions at a time when Australia has a wage crisis, record low levels of wages as a share of the economy, rising inequality, stubbornly high unemployment and more than 1.1 million Australians who desperately want more work but can't get it. Industrial disputation in Australia is at record lows and unions have been working as hard as anyone to be constructive in the face of pressures from automation and globalisation.

The fact is that when unions are weakened, safety suffers. When unions are locked out, workers suffer lower wages and poorer conditions. Workers across these industries—across all industries, but these hazardous industries in particular—need strong, robust unions that stand up to bullies in government and corporations. According to the International Labour Organization there were more than 2.3 million deaths worldwide last year as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. To put that number in perspective, across the world 167,000 people died in armed conflict in 2015—2.3 million people die at work from accidents or diseases arising from their employment compared to a fraction of that in armed conflict. It beggars belief. This is why unions exist: to bring those horrendous rates down.

Unfortunately, rather than working cooperatively with unions to achieve shared outcomes that are in the best interests of both workers and shareholders, as similar industries do across Europe, employers here have in the main adopted the American adversarial system: treat unions as an enemy to be defeated, because every extra dollar in a worker's pocket is a dollar less for a shareholder and every new safety regulation pushed by a union comes off the balance sheet. Little wonder then that a delegation of 30 mining, oil and gas barons made their way to Canberra in August to have a quiet chat with their trained poodles in the ministerial wing, demanding that the government stop a proposed amalgamation of the CFMEU and MUA into a national construction maritime union. No matter that the proposed amalgamation is lawful; no matter that the members of these democratic organisations have voted to pursue it.

This government will go to any lengths to stop workers advocating on their own behalf, and we see that in the creation of this bill. This government is so scared of workers standing together that it is actually legislating to keep them apart. Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, says this bill is antidemocratic and means that it will be big business deciding who can represent workers and not workers themselves. She says the only people who should be deciding whether there is a merger between two unions is the members of those unions—not the boss nor the representatives in the Liberal Party, but the workers. When people lose the right to choose who runs their union, we are living in an authoritarian state.

Those opposite claim this bill puts unions on the same footing as corporations. It simply doesn't; it goes much further. If this bill passes, unions and union officials will be subject to requirements that do not apply to corporations and directors. While persons can be disqualified from being a company director following conviction for various Corporations Act and Crimes Act offences, there is no equivalent to the 'fit and proper person' test. The fit and proper person test in this bill is a list of unacceptable behaviours including fraud, violence and any other event the court considers relevant, which do not have to have been committed in the course of or in relation to the person's duties and obligations as an officer. There is no general public interest test for mergers of corporations and no express bar to corporate mergers based on previous wrongdoing.

The penalties in this bill exceed those for arguably equivalent offences in the Corporations Act. The proposed penalty for the offence of a disqualified person continuing to influence a registered organisation is double the penalty in the equivalent provision of the Corporations Act. This was recommended by the discredited Heydon royal commission, but there is no evidence for why it is necessary or justified. An application for the disqualification of an officer can be brought by the commissioner, the minister or a person with sufficient interest. There are no conditions or safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. There is no justification for the minister or those who claim a sufficient interest to have standing. It goes beyond the recommendations of even Heydon. Under these provisions, once a ground is made out for disqualification, the onus is on the officer to prove to the court why it would be unjust to make an order of disqualification. This bill reverses the onus. Under the Corporations Act, there is no such onus on the director. There is no maximum term of disqualification. It is open to the court to determine.

So, first, this bill goes much further and, second, corporations and unions are vastly different organisations with different objectives. Corporations exist to create a profit for shareholders—and good on them; that's what they exist for. They exist solely to further their own private interest. Unions exist to drive better pay and conditions for workers, both in terms of their direct membership and workers more generally. They exist solely to further shared interests. The expectations on the shoulders of a CEO are to create profit. The expectations on the shoulders of a union organiser or a union secretary are to deliver fair pay and conditions for members—something those on the other side should remember. The harder you push workers, the harder they push back. Unions know how to stand up and defend themselves from attack. It is what they have been doing for more than 200 years. And I should add that no-one on this side of the House has a problem with ensuring that unions act in the best interests of members and with the highest level of integrity. No movement is perfect—not unions, not the Labor Party, certainly not the Liberal Party, not the Catholic Church, not the Salvation Army. Anywhere we look, good movements can be let down by the poor and even criminal behaviour of individuals within them. Just recently—today, in fact—we have heard allegations of terrible things being said on a picket line that cannot and should not be defended. Importantly, allegations should be referred to the police so they can be dealt with appropriately rather than be misused for political purposes in this place.

Labor has no problem with rooting out the crooks in the union movement and letting them face the full wrath of the law. Michael Williamson and the Liberals' best friend Kathy Jackson are cases in point. If anything, we despise these people more than most because every dollar they pocket is a dollar taken from union members and their families—the people we on this side represent. People like Williamson and Jackson have been dealt with or are being dealt with under existing law—the bill before the House has little to do with ensuring better standards of integrity and much more to do with grinding down workers' ability to organise. For every union official caught with their hand in the jar there will be more CEOs doing much worse—Domino's, 7-Eleven, ANU, Caltex, George Calombaris and McDonald's all underpaying staff wages or super. There are no demands from those opposite to clean up corporate culture; there is no outrage about workers' wages and superannuation being ripped off. This government is so incompetent that it can't even manage its own attacks without fumbling. I refer to Nigel Hadgkiss, who had to resign in disgrace. This bill does not deserve to pass this House. It is an egregious attack on workers and unions and should not pass.

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