Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister inform the House what protections are in place in the Workplace Relations Act to prevent workplace coercion and bullying? Is there a culture of bullying in this section of the union movement and what is the government’s response?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canning for his question and note that the unemployment rate in 1996 in Canning was 9.1 per cent and today it is 4.5 per cent—good news. Good news for workers.

This government has enshrined in law the right of all employees to be represented by a union. And we have also enshrined in law the right of someone to choose not to be a member of a union. And 80 per cent of Australia’s workforce has chosen not to join the trade union movement. Nobody can be bullied or forced into joining a union. This is a fundamental policy difference between the coalition government and the Labor Party, which assumes that one day it will get into government.

Labor allows the unions to use coercion for one simple reason: it is because the union bosses run the Labor Party. And of course what we saw yesterday in relation to Dean Mighell was an act of political trickery from the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition said that he had effectively sacked Dean Mighell from the Australian Labor Party. And yet Dean Mighell’s ETU remains affiliated to the Labor Party. The unions control 50 per cent of the votes on the floor of the conference of the Labor Party in Victoria. The ETU is a substantial part of that, and Dean Mighell remains the head of the ETU.

The Leader of the Opposition said yesterday that he was going to return the campaign funding received from the ETU back to the ETU because it was tainted money. And yet the Leader of the Opposition is happy to have ETU candidates run in key seats and he is also happy to have the ETU continue to fund the Labor Party infrastructure through its affiliation.

I wondered if it could get worse in relation to Dean Mighell. And I thought to myself when I read the paper this morning that the actions of Greg Combet, the endorsed Labor Party candidate for Charlton, were appalling. He in fact was at that disgusting meeting held at the Dallas Brooks Hall on 15 November 2006. Greg Combet was there. He was in the audience when Dean Mighell suggested that the workers and the employees of the Australian Building and Construction Commission could not be left with people’s children—an outrageous claim. And Greg Combet, by his silence at that meeting, did not condemn the actions of Dean Mighell. But, just in case he missed it, the Deputy Head of the ABCC wrote to Greg Combet, as the head of the ACTU, and demanded that Greg Combet apologise to the hardworking public servants of the ABCC who had been accused of potential paedophilia. And do you know what Greg Combet did? Nothing. Nothing. Greg Combet stands condemned by his silence. Greg Combet is someone who does not walk away from a media interview, and yet this morning on ABC radio Greg Combet sent out a spokesman with tricky language to claim that he was not there when the comments were made.

Let me tell you that, no matter what the member for Grayndler might pretend to do, Greg Combet stands condemned for his inaction and his silence. If there is any doubt about the relationship between Dean Mighell and Greg Combet, look no further than the ETU newsletter and a photo captioned, ‘A contracting mass meeting to remember’. Everyone will remember that meeting on 15 November, because this is a photo of Dean Mighell and Greg Combet standing side by side at that meeting. If you were to believe Greg Combet’s spokesman this morning, he was not there.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is photoshopped, is it? Greg Combet has been photoshopped in? No. The truth is that Greg Combet was there and he did nothing about it. Never a truer word was said than what Dean Mighell said yesterday on the ABC after he was allegedly sacked. He said: ‘I don’t think it makes any difference whether I am in or out of the Labor Party.’ Damn right!