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

The advice I've received is that those need to be moved after the House has voted on the overall package of amendments. If the Clerk has given me different advice, then I'll move them now, but that's the advice I've received.

Let me return to the topic of the CFMMEU and the importance of allowing demerges. We think it's a perfectly sensible provision. It's for people who have voluntarily come together in an association—in this case in a union—and decided, on reflection, that they have shacked up with a rather unsavoury mob who have a list of criminal convictions longer than your arm and who are great believers in the use of the baseball bat as a tool to encourage negotiations, among the many other features of the CFMMEU. We think that, if a particular division of the CFMMEU want to be released from that straightjacket, they should be. That's a perfectly sensible proposition, and that, indeed, is what this amendment would do if it were to be passed. That is a short summary for the benefit of the House of amendments (1), (3) and (8), circulated in my name.

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