Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I note that Valentine's Day is coming up in a few days time. I'm feeling a lot of love on this side of the chamber for our union movement and its great work, but, on that side of that chamber, hearing the member for Goldstein talk about unions, particularly with this MPI today, is appalling. Clearly he loves to hate on unions.

I think it's really important that I highlight some other things in embellishment of all the things that have been said today, including in question time. Corruption in any institution, whether it's unions or whether it's businesses—whatever it is, even in government—should be called out. I think everyone on this side of the chamber believes that. It is important to highlight that, because all unions—most unions, I should say—do amazing work to represent millions of workers in this country. This side of the chamber supports many things that have been passed in this new term of government but also in the last term, particularly on protecting our workers, but clearly the other side of the chamber does not support these—things like Baby Priya's bill, which we passed; penalty rates; secure work; and also equal pay. These are really important things that the union movement have been fighting for and that we have delivered on this side of the chamber. The Labor Party was born from the union movement. I don't think we need to do a history lesson on this, but it's important to make sure that people in the community of Australia understand that the union movement has done a lot of work for our Australian people.

No-one on this side of the House supports misconduct. No-one on this side of the House believes that what's happened with the CFMEU is right. We've done things. We've heard about it in question time today. I've heard it from my colleagues here today. No-one is above scrutiny. No-one is above the law. But what I will not accept is this deliberate conflation of what happened with the CFMEU with other unions, and I need to call that out.

The other thing I want to highlight in particular is that, prior to question time, the AFR live blog said:

Watson told the Queensland commission of inquiry he was "absolutely appalled" to see some calling for Irving's resignation today.

"If anything I've said here today would suggest that is an outcome they should think again," Watson said. "They would be mad to get rid of Mark Irving."

He said, "I might have said harsh things—they're my opinion and Irving may have had another.

"I've worked for Irving for two years now, and I've never met a more honest or decent man … I can tell you, everything he did was opposed to corruption and was in favour of fixing the CFMEU."

I think that needs to be identified here today, because I listened to the contributions from those opposite and they don't want to face the facts.

I also want to reflect on my experience. I heard the member for Fisher indicate his experience. I didn't hear about what he did in his time as a chippie. But, as a union lawyer, I have worked for the ETU and for the Nurses and Midwives' Association. They are doing amazing work to support workers who have been underpaid and have been working in unsafe conditions, and it's important to highlight that as well. During my time at the ETU, we did a lot of work, particularly during the time of the royal commission, to make sure we were doing the right thing, which we did. During the coalition's time in government, nothing came out of that—just a slap on the wrist. Now, with an Albanese Labor government, more has been done.

I also need to highlight that I wish the opposition had taken this more seriously. They have a passion for asserting that the government is turning a blind eye to union corruption, but I think it's also important that they're saying nothing about the significant underpayment that's occurring in the corporate world. They should be taking that very seriously as well, along with phoenixing and franchising. We heard about it today, and I wish they could take that very seriously, because they have not said anything about that in particular.

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