Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. As the member is well aware, the Federal Court yesterday levied near maximum fines against the CFMEU for, amongst other things, knowingly making false representations to a worker about the necessity to pay fees to the CFMEU in breach of section 349(1)(a) of the Fair Work Act and threatening to prevent a worker from their lawful right to work on a site with the intent of coercing the worker into industrial activity in breach of section 348. The Federal Court judge in that case said that the CFMEU had a deplorable record in contravening the law, having contravened industrial law on 135 separate occasions in the last 15 years. The judge also found that the CFMEU condoned the continual breaching of the law.

The judge, interestingly, also found that the CFMEU in the 2016 calendar year had revenue of nearly $31 million and net assets valued at $58.5 million, including $9.2 million in cash. The case dealt with a worker who had not worked for three months, who was struggling to pay their bills for their family and faced illegal threats designed to prevent him from doing his job and designed to coerce him to pay money to the same union which has $58.5 million in assets. How lucky the workers are to have the CFMEU looking after them in such a professional way!

As the Prime Minister noted, this is of course the same union whose representatives made threats against the children of Glencore workers—threats of the most sickening and seriously criminal kind made against children.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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