Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

The track record of the cosy and close relationship between the union movement and the Labor Party is very clear, particularly the thuggish, militant unions the CFMMEU and the MUA. Over the past two decades, the Australian Labor Party has received, on average, nearly $1 million a year from these two militant unions—in total, $16.3 million in donations over 20 years. Total funds going from the union movement to the Labor Party across fiscal year 2018 to fiscal year 2020 was $19.3 million. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the Labor Party in government will always seek to implement the agenda of the union movement, jumping to the tune of their paymasters.

We see the evidence of this in one of the very first acts of this government, from the minister at the table, through the move to weaken the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to execute their policy to abolish it. They are doing it for a simple reason: this is what the CFMMEU wants. They are turning a blind eye to findings from royal commissions and countless rulings from the courts that have highlighted the lawlessness of and use of intimidation by the CFMMEU and the need for strong workplace relations regulation. The Labor Party in government is happy to hand the keys to the front gate and the lunchroom at building sites back over to the CFMMEU.

We know that many of the cases that the ABCC has been taking action on involve thuggish behaviour, harassment of women or worse, but that is of no concern, it would seem, to this government. They just want to shut down the ABCC, as was done by previous Labor governments. Unlike this government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government at least acknowledged the need for a specialist building regulator, albeit the one they came up with was highly ineffective. But this government has wasted no time in jumping to the tune of the CFMMEU and other unions.

We have heard an enormous amount about the summit, but it is very instructive to look at who was there and what it tells us about the agenda of this government and what it tells us about the priorities of the Albanese Labor government. We know that less than 10 per cent of the private sector workforce are members of unions. There were 33 union officials, 33 representatives from the union movement, at the summit. Out of 142 people in total, 33 seats went to the union movement. Most Australians don't have unions in their lives. Most Australians have very little to do with unions. And yet, should they care to look at what actually happened in terms of the attendance, it sends a very clear message. When this government looks out at the Australian people, it sees one group who it says need to be disproportionately represented when it comes to making its policy, and that is the union movement, the union sector and union bosses. Of course, it is no coincidence that those are the people whose donations are key to the operation of the Labor Party. But, even more critically, those union bosses are critical to the preselection of every one of these people on the other side of the House. They represent less than nine per cent of private sector workers, but they have a deeply disproportionate influence on this government and a very backward-looking mindset when it comes to understanding the composition and structure of the economy.

This was not a summit for people to come together and talk about policy ideas. This was a summit to get people together to remind them that, under this government, any policy needs to be endorsed by the ACTU and it needs to be endorsed by the union movement. Apparently no decision could be made about immigration without first running it carefully past the ACTU to ask in tremulous terms: 'Would you agree to this? Please?' 'Would you please let us,' says the government, 'increase the number of people who are entitled to come to Australia under the immigration agreement?' Apparently that is the way things are now working under the Albanese Labor government.

Let's turn to some of the high-quality individuals who were given a coveted seat at this summit. We heard from the Prime Minister just the other day that he has nothing to do with John Setka—'No, we booted him out of the Labor Party. He's completely disgraceful.' But who was sitting at the table? It was CFMMEU boss Christy Cain. When John Setka launched a vulgar attack on domestic violence advocacy hero Rosie Batty, what did Mr Christy Cain do? He leapt to the defence of John Setka. Apparently Setka's actions were bad enough to be kicked out of the Labor Party, but Mr Cain's still free to turn up and participate in these policy deliberations. His personal track record includes promoting criminal activity by telling his members 'laws need to be broken; you're going to get locked up.' He's been charged with assault and has been found in contempt by the Victorian Supreme Court, but this quality individual was given one of the 141 slots. He—this quality individual, Christy Cain—has described John Setka, who the Prime Minister says is so distasteful he needs to be kicked out of the Labour Party, as 'one of the most fair-dinkum people in this country.' No doubt, if you need somebody to come and bash in some windows or vandalise a car, he is quite the man for that job.

Mr Kane said recently to his members in a circular that went to the members of the CFMMEU: 'It was the power of collective unionism that won the day and make no mistake it is now the Australian Labor Party's turn to deliver. The job for all of us is far from over. We have to actively keep our foot on the throats of every politician until they put through our demands.' This is a man who the Prime Minister invited to join in this summit, and it is no surprise that the outcomes of this summit have been the announced implementation of a range of matters that have been on the ACTU's wish list for a long time. Indeed, the call to reintroduce industry-wide bargaining threatens to take us back to the very worst of the bad old days of strike action across multiple sectors in our economy.

What else have we seen from the union movement? Unions New South Wales, from my own home state—I don't claim any association with them—want to introduce bargaining fees for non-union members when negotiating enterprise agreements—standover tactics from unions New South Wales.

It's not just with regard to these traditional industrial matters that this government has been jumping to the tune of the union movement. What's the Assistant Treasurer been up to? The Assistant Treasurer has been doing the bidding of the industry funds and the union movement. He put out a consultation paper wanting to do away with terrific reforms introduced when we were in government which would have increased transparency by requiring the disclosure by superannuation funds when they made donations to unions. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, $12.9 million was paid from super funds to unions in the 2021 financial year. Forty million dollars went to Labor Party affiliated unions in the past four years. We legislated for transparency on this because it's a pretty grubby connection, but the new Assistant Treasurer, in one of his first acts, said, 'We're going to try to reverse that,' jumping to the tune of their union masters across the full sweep of policy. That's the basis of how this government operates.

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