Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. It gives me no pleasure to speak in this debate, because we shouldn't be having it. This piece of legislation should not be in front of the Australian parliament. It's an insult to all of us. As many of you will know, I live in the Northern Territory, and over many years I've seen the value and importance of organised labour to my community. Many of you will know that my electorate is named after Vincent Lingiari. Vincent, for those of you who don't know, led the walk-off on Wave Hill station, which started a strike which went over a number of years for wages and conditions for Aboriginal pastoral workers and, ultimately, for the recognition and return of Aboriginal land to its original owners.

You can imagine the enthusiasm with which employer organisations around the Northern Territory, and across the country, met this sort of proposal. It's very clear that the way in which this great series of events in Australian history came to a conclusion for the benefit of Aboriginal people was in large part because of the support and work of the trade union movement around this country—in particular, the Maritime Union of Australia, which is disparaged by this government on an ongoing and continuing basis. Now they're opposed to the proposition that this union should amalgamate with the CFMEU, and it is the very target of one aspect of this piece of legislation.

The other particular union was the North Australian Workers' Union, which morphed into the miscellaneous workers union in the Northern Territory. Its workers and organisers and volunteer workers from the Northern Territory and across Australia raised funds and provided material to sustain these strikers over the long strike. Without their assistance, I very much doubt that we would have got the result we did. You would think, the way this piece of legislation before us has been framed, that somehow or another advocates involved in the trade union movement are all criminals and they should not be recognised and their positions should not be taken seriously, but, more importantly, they should be excluded from organising, excluded from making representation, excluded from being advocates for their organisations and excluded from engaging in political activity. That's the purpose of this legislation. It's not about industrial relations; this is purely and simply about politics, coming as it does after that dreadful, dreadful, dreadful royal commission—the Heydon royal commission—set up by this government effectively to interrogate the Leader of the Opposition. That's what it was about—for no outcome, of course. This government could use the recommendations from that royal commission by Commissioner Heydon as the basis for making this legislation.

The government alleges that there's a plethora, a large cohort, of corrupt union officials around this country. There are no facts to support that claim. If corruption or illegal activity exists, then that should be a matter for the criminal courts. Instead, what we're seeing here is a specific piece of legislation targeted directly at the leadership of the trade union movement of this country, the purpose of which is to break the back of their political opposition to this government. Let's be clear—this is nothing more than validating just another plank in this government's anti-union and anti-worker agenda.

According to the Bills Digest, this bill amends the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act to include serious criminal offences punishable by five or more years imprisonment or more as a new category of ‘prescribed offence’ for the purposes of the automatic disqualification regime, which prohibits a person from acting as an official of a registered organisation. What is that about? It is nothing more than targeting and discriminating against the representatives of Australian workers in this country. That is what it's about. We don't have similar requirements for the directors of large corporations in this country. We can't have them being treated the same way as we treat trade union officials—God forbid! We will protect the interests of those from the top end of Phillip Street or Kent Street, whatever you call the financial centre of Sydney, or in Melbourne. It is because they are concerned about the increasing importance of the messages coming out of the trade union movement in this country about the absolute disarray of this government and their disillusionment with this government over the rights of Australian workers that those in the financial centres say to the government, 'We support this piece of legislation; we think it's bloody fantastic.' Well they might. But they shouldn't. If they were fair and reasonable they would know that this legislation should not be supported.

This legislation will allow the Federal Court to prohibit officials from holding office. It will be an offence for a person, once disqualified, to continue to act as an official or in a way that influences the affairs of an organisation. It will allow the Federal Court to cancel the registration of an organisation on a range of grounds. It will allow applications to be made to the Federal Court for other orders, including suspending the rights and privileges of an organisation, an individual, a branch or division of an organisation. Why do we need this? There is no tangible explanation from this government. The trade union leadership across this country have said that where there is illegal and inappropriate activity we should root it out. If there is a problem with criminal offences, if people have made such allegations, that should be taken to the police. But, of course, we know that these are hollow objections about the way in which the trade unions work in this country.

This piece of legislation absolutely stinks. This legislation stinks. Unions are already more highly regulated than corporations and charities. Increasing this regulation even further would only serve to allow the government of the day, the employers, the business lobbyists or anyone with a sufficient interest the power to commence onerous, costly and unreasonable legal proceedings against unions and union leaders. Why would you do this? What is it about Australian working people that annoys you so much? What is it about organised labour that upsets you so much? I'm a proud trade union member and have been all my working life. I say to people: we wouldn't have the country we've got now if it weren't for the trade union movement. That's very clear. Of course, I reckon, given the way that the government have treated penalty rates, if they had been around when the eight-hour day was proposed they would have said: 'We're opposing that. There'll be no eight-hour day. And, by the way, we don't mind sweatshops.' That's what you would do. Why would you do that? 'Because it makes profits. If you make profits, people will invest more. It'll create more sweatshops. They're a great idea!' The basis of the approach from this government is to deny Australian workers access to their representative organisations, who advocate on their behalf and do the things that they want them to do.

This bill does not put corporations and unions on an equal footing. There is no question about that. It's clear that the obligations on registered organisations and their officers are significantly in excess of those imposed on corporations and company directors. Why not do the same? Why don't we have equivalent legislation dealing with company directors and corporations? We know that the government's intention through this bill is to attack the union movement and take workers away from the bargaining table. That's what they really want. 'We can't have you bargaining. We can't have you talking about your rights at work. We can't have you talking about what you're doing at work or what your wage rates are, even though we know that we're facing record low wages growth, rising cost of living pressures and insecure work.' We have 1.1 million Australians looking for more work. This is a government that supports cuts to the take-home pay of those lowest paid Australians. Why would you do that? Why would you target the lowest paid people in this country for the way in which they are trying to make a contribution to themselves and their families when you protect the top end of town? As I said, you look after those with the financial heartbeat, those people who make sure your coffers are full. You protect their interests but not the interests of Australia's lowest paid workers.

We know from the work of the parliament that this piece of legislation is not something which should attract the support of people who are concerned about the rights of workers and our international obligations. I know that my friend the member for Newcastle just spoke about the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and its attitude to this piece of legislation. Why is it that this government sees it as okay to address it in a way which is against the rights of Australian workers, against our international obligations and against the conventions of the International Labour Organization? Why is this okay? How can it be okay? Nothing stops this government, with their extreme right-wing claptrap, bringing into this parliament a piece of legislation which is totally politically motivated and is designed to victimise Australian working people.

This legislation is inconsistent with international law and is totally against the rights and autonomy of workers' organisations. It allows excessive political, corporate and regulatory interference in the democratic function and control of organisations through the expanded standing provisions and grounds for court orders. The cancellation regime proposed by the bill is unsupported by a policy and is not genuinely equivalent to the regulation of corporations. These are the views of Australian trade unions. They don't matter to this government, because this government has effectively said to the Australian union movement across this country, 'Your views don't count. It doesn't matter that the people you represent want you to express those views; your views and, by that very nature, their views are of no importance to us.'

The proposed changes to the amalgamation processes are directly aimed at the CFMEU, the TCF and the MUA. That's all it's about: three organisations wanting to come together to improve their possibilities of representing Australian workers and advocating on their behalf. That's a threat to this government. We can't have advocates, either industrial or political, coming out of the Australian union movement, because they're offensive to us. They're offensive to the way we work, they're offensive to the way we think and they're offensive because they absolutely don't go with the political direction we want to go with in this country. We should condemn this legislation and oppose it.

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