House debates

Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Bills

Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019

11:42 am

Photo of Graham PerrettGraham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take that interjection from the member for Makin. Zip—absolutely nothing. We know that union density has been on the decline since the 1970s. So if ever there was a time when workers needed fearless union representation, it is now—and particularly in the construction industry. As I said, I talk to my brothers and nephews who work in this industry. We see people getting ripped off—and even worse. I have one brother who was literally inches away from death when two people were killed right alongside him. We know it is a dangerous industry. There was significant slowing in the annual rate of growth in average weekly earnings for adult men working full time in the construction industry between November 2013 and November 2018—the time the coalition has been in office, the years when the coalition has been asleep at the wheel. For all employees in construction during that period, there was an annual average growth of 0.8 per cent in weekly earnings, which is considerably below the annual average growth of 4.7 per cent achieved between November 2008 and November 2013—the Rudd and Gillard years.

But the growth in average weekly earnings is only one measure to gauge how crook the economy is. Arguably the best measure of wage growth by industry is the wage price index. Using this measure the annual growth in wages in the five years to 2 December 2018 was more subdued in male dominated industries such as mining and construction. The wage growth in these industries was 1.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively. The all industry average wage growth was actually 2.2 per cent. What is most telling is that the average annual growth in mining and construction in the five years from December 2007 to December 2013 was four per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively.

That is government data. It is absolutely clear that wages in those industries are stagnating. So don't listen to the fear campaign coming out of the Liberal Party. I have seen the information they are putting out there. Dodgy figures are being trotted out by the dodgy Liberal Party propaganda union about the costs associated with the building industry. On top of stagnating wages under this government's watch, dodgy building firms are deliberately avoiding paying workers.

A government member interjecting

Find your own chair if you want to make a comment, thank you! Phoenixing is a practice where dodgy companies deliberately burn companies in an attempt to avoid their obligations to employees, government, home owners and honest businesses. Phoenix activity not only hurts hardworking Australians, their families and their communities but costs the economy billions of dollars. One estimate is that it costs the Australian economy in excess of $5 billion per year, which is more than $200 for every person in Australia. But the Morrison government is doing nothing to stop these dodgy companies from ripping off hardworking Australians. Instead, it attacks the very organisations that stand up for workers and their families.

Just last week, a Perth court fined a Perth builder, Gerry Hanssen, for breaking industrial laws by refusing to allow union officials entry to a worksite—the same worksite where a German backpacker had died weeks before after falling 13 floors through an open shaft. The union officials had a lawful right at all times to enter the site and there clearly was a need, but the judge said Mr Hanssen was driven by his blind hatred of unions. I don't know Mr Hanssen, but it was not the first time that Mr Hanssen or his company had been brought before the law. He had previously been fined for exploiting migrant workers. Mr Hanssen is a major coalition donor and proudly admits that he is a member of the Western Australia Liberal Party. So why isn't the Prime Minister outraged about Mr Hanssen's law-breaking? Why hasn't the PM or the Western Australian industrial relations minister sought his expulsion from the Liberal Party? It's clear that the Liberals are equally driven by a blind hatred of unions. The Liberals' only agenda is to destroy unions without regard to how this will impact on the fabric of Australian society.

Unions make sure that worksites are safe for workers. Union officials need to enter worksites to carry out inspections. The very lives of workers depend on union officials being granted access to worksites. Surely no-one would argue that shutting down an unsafe worksite until it can be made safe is not a life-saving function of the union movement. The actual working days lost through worksites being shut down due to industrial action have been decreasing for the past two decades. That's in total. Even though there are millions of more Australians, the total number of working days has actually gone down as well as obviously the ratio. There are already laws in place that limit industrial action taken by employees. There are limits on the types of allowable bargaining demands through protected industrial action. Many enterprise bargaining agreements prevent industrial action during the term of that agreement. In fact, some might say that the industrial relations power has completely shifted. Even though it was a Labor government that actually brought in that change to centralised bargaining and the like, that is something that does not give a lot of rights to the employees in the work place.

So is the Prime Minister tightening up the laws and against this despicable behaviour by dodgy builders that endanger the lives of Australians? No; we are not seeking action on that at all. The only industrial laws that the Morrison government have brought into parliament are all about attacking unions. As I said from the start, this is not legislation bringing in the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, as promised in December last year by Prime Minister Morrison. Instead, this is a piece of legislation that is all about attacking unions, and the government should be ashamed of it.

Debate adjourned.

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