Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

I rise with great interest in the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026, as someone who made a living out of the construction sector for 35-odd years before I came into this place, as a carpenter and joiner, as a registered builder and as a construction lawyer. There are some good elements in this bill that the opposition is happy to support, but there are some terrible elements of this bill, which I will leave to my discussions later on. Firstly, let's just have a quick look at some of the good aspects of this bill. The bill is basically in two main thematic parts. There are some changes to the Fair Work Commission and changes relating to enterprise agreements in Commonwealth procurement.

They're the two main issues, the two themes of this bill. The first one we support; the second one we do not support. In relation to the four main Fair Work Commission changes—the jurisdictional objections, the delegations, the vexatious litigants and determining matters on the papers—these are all are relatively sensible reforms, and the coalition is happy to support those. The coalition would like to see the government act responsibly and split the bill into these two main themes.

I recall, back in 2022, when this Prime Minister first won office, in one of his first speeches, he stood up and said, 'I'm going to be a prime minister for the whole of this country. I'm not going to create any wedges in legislation. I'm going to ensure that this government is open and transparent and honest and all that sort of stuff.' Well, we all know now, after four years, that anything could be further from the truth. This government continues, almost on a daily basis, to try and sneak stuff into what might otherwise be uncontentious legislation. It's hoping that the coalition will miss the insidious aspects of this bill.

In relation to the jurisdictional objections, this is an issue that we don't have a problem with. The jurisdictional objections clutter up the Fair Work Commission on the basis of arguments between employer and employee about whether someone was terminated or whether their position was terminated or not. There needs to be a specific or an individual hearing like a threshold hearing on that point. To do away with that jurisdictional issue is reasonable, given the massive backload in the Fair Work Commission that this government finds itself with. We think that that's a reasonable way to help ease the burden on the Fair Work Commission. The practical effect of this change is to reduce the unnecessary preliminary hearings, and it will allow the Fair Work Commission to get on with doing its job: helping parties to resolve their disputes.

The bill also creates a framework for the President of the Fair Work Commission to delegate certain procedural powers in unresolved dismissal and unlawful termination disputes to senior commission staff. Similarly, we don't have an issue with that.

Thirdly, the bill allows the Fair Work Commission to dismiss unfair deactivation and unfair termination applications where they're frivolous, vexatious or have no reasonable prospects of success—fair enough.

Fourthly, the bill also allows the Fair Work Commission to decide certain contested matters on the papers. I had the privilege of being an adjudicator for many years in my legal profession, where I determined matters on the papers. There are many instances where judicial officers or quasi-judicial officers have the benefit or the ability to be able to determine disputes on the papers—that is, without having an oral hearing. It saves the parties money and saves the parties time, so we don't have a problem with that.

There are some other minor amendments, which I won't take up the time of the chamber with. Needless to say, those minor amendments have the support of the coalition.

But I want to turn to the insidious nature of this bill, the insidious aspect that those members opposite don't really want to talk about, and that is in relation to the procurement bargaining involving the Commonwealth. Madam Deputy Speaker, as someone who worked as a young lad on building sites across Victoria—your state—on the first day of my apprenticeship, I was bullied relentlessly by members of the then Builders Labourers Federation, now the CFMEU. It was the first day of my apprenticeship on a building site. I would have been 18 years old and 70 kilos wringing wet, and I was apparently sweeping the floor too quickly for the liking of these two CFMEU goons. That started my significant distrust in the CFMEU.

What the changes in this legislation will effectively do is allow the Commonwealth to ensure that, in contracts that the Commonwealth enters into, contractors who are aligned with the CFMEU or have a particular arrangement with the CFMEU can be preferred to other contractors. Let that sink in for a moment. How could it be that, in 2026, this government, after everything that has happened with the royal commission into the building industry, with what's going on with the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU in Queensland right now and with all of the graft and corruption—the federal Labor Party have had their eyes opened just in the last 18 months. Now they've seen the light and they realise just how corrupt the CFMEU is, and they want to provide a means by which they can provide preferential treatment for unions who have particular enterprise bargaining agreements that provide preferential treatment to the CFMEU. How can that be? How can it be, when Geoffrey Watson SC recently identified $15 billion worth of graft and corruption in the Victorian construction sector—just in Victoria—involving the CFMEU?

When I was a lad, when we walked up to building sites there used to be a huge sign on the front gate, and that sign said 'No ticket, no start'—meaning that if you weren't a member of the then Builders Labourers Federation you could not get a job on that building site. Thankfully John Howard, when he was the Prime Minister, outlawed that practice through his freedom-of-association rules and laws. But unfortunately it has crept back in. The unofficial practice of 'no ticket, no start', whilst it was illegal, is effectively what unions like the CFMEU did. They introduced these rules: 'Sunshine, if you want a job doing the traffic control on this site, if you want a job doing the form work on this site, if you want a job doing the steelwork on this site, you've got to sign a CFMEU approved EBA. And if you don't, not only will we not allow you on this site but we will black ban every single one of the sites you are working on throughout this country.'

Apparently, according to members opposite who received very generous donations from the CFMEU, this all came as some great revelation. They had no idea that this was going on, despite my banging on about it for eight years beforehand. For eight years I've been talking about this in this place. The member for Watson, who was then responsible for it, came into the chamber about 18 months ago and said, 'Oh, we had no idea about this graft and corruption!' What a load of rubbish.

This bill effectively provides the Commonwealth with the ability to provide preferred treatment to enter into contracts with the Commonwealth to businesses who have approved EBAs with the CFMEU. To anybody who is listening to this from any building site around the country—and I know you are listening—what you should read from that is that if you don't have an EBA that is approved by the CFMEU you will no longer get Commonwealth government contracts; you will be locked out. This is effectively the way this government operates to control the construction sector, which has tens of billions of dollars worth of contracts each and every year. This is the payback for their CFMEU mates. This is how this government looks after their CFMEU mates.

The evidence is incontrovertible, whether it's the best-practice industry conditions in Queensland or whether it's the $15 billion worth of graft and corruption in the construction sector in Victoria, and there is so much more evidence to come out. It means that everyday mums and dads are paying more money, more taxes, to pay for roads, bridges and buildings—but not just public buildings. For every public building that's being built by those contractors that I spoke about earlier—the plumbers, sparkies, carpenters, formworkers and concreters—if they can get 150 bucks an hour on a CFMEU job, why would they want to take on another job for less? Why would they? That drives up the cost of the construction sector. It drives up the cost of building things in Australia. It drives up the cost of infrastructure. What that means is that we all pay more tax. We wonder why this government is looking for another $280 billion to take from the Australian taxpayer to pay for this sort of shenanigans. It is unfathomable that those members opposite can stand in here—

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