Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important motion and echo serious concerns that I have and that my community has about the CFMEU and the corruption in the construction industry more broadly and to urge the government to take further action on this. While I support the administrator, I believe we need more than a three-year administrator because this has been an endemic problem for the last 40 years and it needs more action than one administrator to solve.

The corruption, thuggery and general misconduct in this industry have been one of the worst-kept secrets across the country for decades. While I support, as I said, the government's action in terms of appointing an administrator, we need to be honest that the Labor Party has turned a blind eye to endemic corruption and thuggery in the CFMEU for decades. The CFMEU made contributions of $4 million to the Albanese government's successful 2022 campaign, and the government only took real action in relation to the CFMEU when forced to by the actions of brave investigative journalists, particularly out of the SMH, who I pay credit to, who have made a real contribution here.

Let's talk about what's wrong with this industry. When I speak to people in this industry, as I do regularly, what I hear often is: 'Allegra, I'll speak to you, but do not tell anyone that I have spoken to you. Never mention what I have said, because these people could ruin my business overnight and they could destroy me and my family.' This is what's been going on, and it has been going on for decades. This is not the way the construction industry or any industry in our country should operate, particularly one that is so integral to our housing, to our infrastructure and to what makes this country work. So I put a pox on both the houses—on the Labor Party for turning a blind eye to the CFMEU's corruption for decades and on the coalition for failing to act effectively when they were in government for almost a decade and for putting forward the ABCC, which didn't actually deal with this and left us with this problem, which is still endemic.

The question really is: how do we make a change now to make that fundamental shift in the corruption and thuggery of this industry so that we do not need another royal commission in three, four or five years and that this changes once and for all? I believe we have a long way to go there. As I said, I support the appointment of the administrator. I think it has been imperfect. I think there are actions that they should have taken and questions for them to answer. But overall I do believe that this was a constructive approach as opposed to deregistration of the union, which I think would have only made things worse. But the truth is that the CFMEU administrator cannot deal single-handedly with the breadth of corruption, thuggery, misogyny and other issues facing this industry; it needs broader action. I and others wrote to the Prime Minister back in June last year and said, 'Appoint an administrator, but go much further. There are key issues that you need to have in mind,' and many of those are still relevant.

I want to talk through three of them. Firstly, the Master Builders Association has suggested—and I fully support—having an enhanced taskforce across the AFP, the state police bases, the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission. We need a heavily resourced taskforce to address these issues of corruption or other sorts of criminal activity when they come up because the jurisdictional challenges in this industry are real. I know this firsthand from speaking to people about it. So this is something that we need resources for now.

Secondly, we also need competition reform. The industrial relations system, which is largely not subject to competition law, creates an environment where there are incentives for corruption. You can effectively ensure that the subcontractors that you're suggesting get the deals, and that is the perfect place for corruption to start and to fester. Until we change those incentives, and I think competition law is part of it, we will not fix this.

Thirdly, I believe we need to change our procurement laws, and I support the National Construction Industry Forum setting out clear behavioural standards. We need to give that teeth when it comes to procurement.

Finally, I believe we need a broader regulatory setting for the construction industry. If Labor were to back this, it would show that Labor is willing to really step into this rather than still play the political game on the ABCC. The ABCC failed. It did not address the issues. But, if the government does not put in a broader set of reforms that are permanent, it won't address the issues either. This is an industry that absolutely needs a fundamental overhaul for housing, infrastructure, clean energy infrastructure—you name it. We need the construction industry to work without thuggery.

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