James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today was an excellent day. We passed the legislation through this chamber for the National Anti-Corruption Commission. I'm sure the Senate will pass it next week, and that will mean there will be a body to look at corruption and the way in which money is used, potentially, to inappropriately influence our political system. One of the worst examples, which I hope they look at at the first opportunity, is the correlation between union movement financial donations to the Labor Party and decisions that are made, from a policy point of view, in exchange for that financial interference, that financial support.

The bill that has gone through this chamber without my support or the support of the opposition and that will go to the Senate and may or may not pass—and we don't speculate on what could happen up there—is a bill to reform our industrial relations system. It is something that was never, ever spoken about, in its detail, in the recent election campaign. This is such a great reform—that will be so popular and that the people of this country want, apparently—that the fundamentals of it were never campaigned on by the Labor Party in the election six months ago. That's how great this policy is. That's how popular it is. That's how good it is for workers, apparently. That's how good it is for small business. It's so fantastic that the Labor Party didn't talk about it once—not once—in the recent election campaign.

Why would that be? Why would it be that, upon coming into government, upon winning an election, the priority of the new government was to do something that had nothing to do with the election commitments they took to the election in May? Why would that be? Could it have something to do with $100 million of donations from the union movement over the previous decade or so? Could it be the need for the new government to pay the piper, to give the union movement a return on that investment, that $100 million of political donations? If it had any political benefit, if it were a good thing for the people of Australia, you'd proudly campaign on it and you'd take it to the election and you'd say, 'Vote for us, and these are the great things we'll do to the industrial relations system in Australia.' If it were something that you thought the people wanted, you'd take it to an election.

If it were something that you had to do in exchange for tens of millions of dollars of donations from the union movement and that wasn't good for the people of Australia, then, yes, you wouldn't mention it in an election campaign. You wouldn't go to the election and say, 'We're going to change the Fair Work Act and put all these new measures in place.' Instead, you would take the union movement's money and you would say, 'I need this money to win an election, so I'd better take that money from you, and then, when we get in, you'll be very, very happy with the things that we're going to do that will be good for the union movement in the changes that we'll make to the industrial relations system.' You can't campaign on this, and you can't talk about it before the election, because it's not going to be popular. Small businesses will be frightened by these sorts of changes. Economic leaders will be frightened by these sorts of changes, because they're not about the interests of workers and they're not about the interests of businesses; they're about the union movement. They're about propping up a dying concept. ABS statistics recently showed that there was 14.1 per cent union membership amongst the workforce. In the private sector, I think, less than 10 per cent of workers are members of the union movement.

So the union movement need to use the funds they've got and they need to support people into power to dramatically fix this crisis they've got about their very existence. So what you could do to help the union movement is make massive changes to our industrial relations system, to reignite warfare within the workplaces of this nation. In doing so, in the view of the union movement, you will increase their membership and, in doing so, you will dramatically increase industrial disputes in our economy, increase unemployment and cause dramatic economic carnage. All those things are not good for Australia, but they are good for the union movement. And, if they give you $100 million in donations, there has got to be a fair return on that investment.

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