Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House of the coalition government’s investment in roads across Australia, including in my electorate of Riverina? Are there any threats to this investment, and what is the government’s response?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Riverina for her question. The member for Riverina would be aware that the government, over the 10-year period from 2004 to 2014, will invest $38 billion in Australia’s land transport programs—$38 billion into the road and rail networks across Australia—including some significant projects in the member for Riverina’s electorate, particularly on that critical arterial link between Melbourne and Sydney, the Hume Highway, a very important piece of infrastructure.

That could all be put at risk if there were to be a Labor government elected in this country this year. You may ask why, Mr Speaker. First of all, the poor economic management background of a Labor government would indicate that there would not be $38 billion left available. They would go and spend it elsewhere. But, more importantly, the representatives of the union movement would come back into control of those construction sites. Mr Speaker, you would be well aware that there has been a Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry in Australia, and that royal commission indicated that there was a cost element of 20 per cent for the intimidation and involvement of the union movement in construction across Australia—so, of every dollar that the Labor Party would spend on construction, only 80c would end up on the roads, because the rest would be frittered away with the intimidation by the union movement.

Mr Speaker, you may ask, ‘How is that so?’ Before the royal commission into the construction industry was held, we were participating, with the New South Wales government, in projects on the Pacific Highway on the North Coast of New South Wales. There happened to be a company from my electorate that won a contract on a project called Tandy’s Lane, on the Pacific Highway, that involved duplicating 5.5 kilometres of the highway north of Ballina. Hackett Laboratory Services won a tender for soil and concrete and environmental testing of that site. The company paid award wages and superannuation to its employees. The CFMEU entered the workplace and demanded that it sign a union based enterprise bargaining agreement that it could not afford, demanded that it become a closed shop—no ticket, no start—and demanded that it switch its superannuation payments across to the union super fund.

Prior to the building and construction industry royal commission of inquiry and the changes in that industry, that is what used to happen. When that company refused to accede to the demands of the CFMEU, the union took industrial action and pressured the prime contractor to throw that contractor off the site. The CFMEU almost sent that small business broke because of the way that they wanted to intimidate and control that workplace. That is what the union movement wants. That is why they are running this campaign, that is why they are putting together this strategy: so that they can continue to enter the workplace—in the way they always used to in this country under Labor governments—intimidate bosses, cost jobs, put the cost of jobs up and put the cost of contracts up. That is the strategy.

On page 8 of this strategy manual from the ACTU it says, ‘Members who are still undecided at the time of the election will need to be visited at home.’ We know what that means, because they visited the workplace of this small business on a construction site and nearly put them out of business. They will come knocking on the door of those members, and they will not be there to ask, ‘How are the kids and the grandkids?’ They will be there to demand their vote and to run their strategy. Make no mistake, Mr Speaker, this campaign is about getting the unions back in control of Australia, getting them back in every workplace in Australia. The unions will be in charge of this country, not an ALP government led by the member for Griffith.