Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In continuing my remarks on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011, I want to reiterate my opposition to the bill and my concern for the construction industry. The Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, the ABCC, has allowed productivity in the construction industry to improve dramatically since its introduction. In considering the impacts of its abolition, I spoke to Martin Locke, a local quality home builder in Townsville, in relation to the industry in general. Martin is reasonably confident. He runs a small team and has a good business model. He wants to provide a quality housing product to quality people in a quality subdivision. His business has only ever operated under the umbrella of the ABCC; therefore, he does not have firsthand knowledge of what the changes in this bill will mean.

Martin would like to see the government get out of the way and let him get on with building. He sees that this proposed change is not a major concern to the industry. The system works and he is vitally worried that it appears that it is being changed for no good reason. He says that the industry is facing genuine concerns. The cost of basic materials such as steel, concrete, timber and fuel are impacting the industry's ability to produce a quality product at a reasonable price. Other builders tell me they are worried about the costs of these things as well. They are also telling me that, if they are expensive now, the world's most expensive carbon tax will only make them more expensive. The cost of concrete and bitumen is rising at the start of a development, and we will see the cost of land and housing rise further as we all have to pay this carbon tax. We will be making it harder and harder for Australians chasing their first home to make that purchase.

This government goes on and on about working Australians, but at every turn this government is putting up roadblocks to the success of every other Australian. The abolition of the ABCC will only play into that. Governments cannot control prices directly, but they can support the construction industry by cutting out the unnecessary bureaucracy that interferes with business and creates inefficiencies. The ABCC has helped to do this. It has ensured fairness exists in industrial relations, without letting either side have the kind of power that creates one-sided industrial disputes with consequences for productivity and costs.

As a supporter of the ABCC, I strongly oppose this bill. We should be working with the construction industry to keep fairness in the workplace. Allowing unions the power to use whatever tactics they can to run their agenda serves only to hurt the industry, and no-one can support that. It takes a strong policeman to maintain the balance in industrial relations and that is what we have now, but this bill seeks to strip it away in favour of a toothless tiger replacement.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. I am not surprised to hear those on the opposition side opposing this bill, but I do believe that the speakers on the other side go too far when they talk about the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner providing fairness and ensuring fairness in industrial relations. That is not what the ABCC did. It is not the reason that it was established by the Howard government.

The Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner was set up by the Howard government to attack unions and to target workers who were outspoken in their workplaces. It was not a balanced office about making sure that both sides abided by the laws and regulations. I have no objection to ensuring that all parties—employers, employees, unions—are complying with the laws and doing the right thing by the industry. I have no problem with laws being in place to do that. However, you cannot say that the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, the ABCC, as it existed was set up to ensure fairness or that it in fact provided fairness. The harshest part of this law has been the ABCC's coercive information gathering powers.

We have just heard the member for Herbert saying that it was a strong policeman and that we need a strong policeman. In fact it was more than that. The powers given to the inspectors under the ABCC were stronger than the powers any of our police officers have in this country. They had powers the police do not have in relation to compulsorily requiring persons to come before them and provide information. The ABCC did not allow those people to have representation. Under the ABCC, people were threatened with imprisonment if they did not come along and sit down in a closed room without representation, and say what was happening in their workplace. This is not fair law.

I was elected to ensure that we provided fairness in the workplace, not just by getting rid of Work Choices but by ensuring fairness in the building industry as well. I believe that there should be equal laws for all workers. Having said that, I do support the bill that is before the House and I do so for very good reason. The bill makes changes to the current ABCC and regulations that make real headway towards providing that fairness. It will ensure that, when it comes to those coercive information gathering powers, no longer can an inspector decide for themselves to mandatorily require someone to come before them. Under this bill, they will be required to go and get an examination notice through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to actually be allowed to use those powers. So there are now checks and balances in place and a mechanism which ensures that individuals are treated fairly and reasonably in the way they are brought before the tribunal and required to answer questions. It ensures that people required to attend an interview may be represented by a lawyer of their choice and that their right to claim legal privilege and public interest immunity will be recognised. These are not rights which workers had under the Howard government's laws. Persons required to attend an interview will be reimbursed for the reasonable expenses and all interviews are to be videotaped and undertaken by the director or an SES employee. The Commonwealth Ombudsman will monitor and review all interviews and provide reports to the parliament on the exercise of this power.

Importantly, these coercive information gathering powers have a sunset clause. Under section 46 of the bill, those powers will cease three years from the commencement of this legislation. We owe this to workers across the country. I said at the beginning I have no problem with ensuring that the laws are complied with by all people in the building and construction industry but we must make sure that those people enjoy the same basic rights as any other person before any court in this nation. Previously, a person accused of a criminal act had more rights than a worker under the ABCC. We will correct this imbalance to ensure that only in cases considered by a presidential member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal should powers be used in such a way that people understand that their basic rights to representation, legal privilege and public interest immunity will be honoured, and that they will be reimbursed for costs.

Many people have already spoken on this bill and the minister has gone through it in detail in the explanatory memorandum. It is my intention simply to put on the record what I consider were the harshest parts of the laws in relation to the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner. I believe this Labor government has done a lot on changing the guidelines and definition of 'construction' because it was not just about coercive powers. When we talked about building and construction under the Howard government, the definition was so wide that it applied to many industries, well outside what we would consider to be the building and construction industry. In making sure that the definition more accurately reflects the industry, this legislation will apply to many fewer people than previously and to fewer workplaces. That is fair as well.

People are still required to comply with laws. They are still required to comply with the Fair Work Act. They are still required to comply with workplace health and safety legislation but they are placed where they should be—on an equal footing with other workers across the country. True to say that those in the building and construction industry will still be set up under a separate set of laws and there will be a new agency to oversee them but at least that agency will fall under the auspices of Fair Work Australia. I believe that is where it should sit because that is where all other workers rights' are respected and implemented.

What I hope to see out of these changes is a much more balanced approach to looking at this industry. We need to make sure that everyone is complying with the law. That also means that we need to be holding building and construction companies to account where their practices are such that people's lives are at risk. Too many people are permanently injured, or killed, in this industry each year. Through this agency and these laws we will hold to account all people who may be responsible. There is nothing more important than the safety of workers at the workplace. They deserve to go home to their families each night.

The Safe Rates campaign by the transport industry is a fantastic campaign which I fully support. It is important we make sure that not just those on the roads are being looked after but that also those in the building and construction industry, like every other worker, are being looked after.

It is my pleasure to support this bill and the changes it seeks to introduce. I believe it goes a long way to creating more fairness and ensuring there is a balanced approach in compliance with laws and safety regulations in the building and construction industry.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following the member for Petrie's rather confused contribution to the debate on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011, it is incumbent on me to say, firstly, that it is not a workplace safety issue; it is properly the jurisdiction of occupational and health and safety legislation. This is really about the ABCC, commissioned in 2005, which came out of a royal commission which found that there were over 100 types of unlawful or inappropriate conduct in the building and construction industry. The member for Petrie carried on about workplace safety. But what about the unlawful conduct which was found by a very thorough royal commission, and their recommendation that, without somebody with the power to do something about entrenched unlawful behaviour in the building and construction industry, we would continue to see declines in productivity and obstacles in the place of properly conducted economic activity? The corporations the member for Petrie refers to must comply with occupational health and safety regulations or their employees go to jail. What about the people in Australia found by the Cole royal commission to be engaging in unlawful activity hindering our economic progress?

We know that the ABCC has been a tough cop on the beat and, yes, was given wide-ranging powers by the Howard government. Why? Because the ABCC, which works quite successfully, has helped the building and construction industry to increase productivity by 10 per cent since it was set up. The biggest challenge in Australian economic industrial relations today is how to lift productivity. We have seen a well-functioning body lift productivity in this sector by 10 per cent; yet the government of the day is proposing to weaken and undermine the role of this body in the building and construction sector. Why would it be doing that? Why would the government of the day undermine an institution that is lifting the productivity rates in a critical sector of our economy like building and construction? We know why the Labor government is undermining this body. Indeed, if you do not think that adding 33 additional procedures into the ABCC is undermining the effectiveness of this body, then I think you are absolutely crazy—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will not cast aspersions on the chair.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I certainly was not doing that. I should have said that about the member for Petrie and the others who have made contributions in this place about this matter along the lines of, 'All we want to do is streamline this body,' and, 'We need to make sure that people's rights are being considered.' The Cole royal commission found that unlawful behaviour was occurring and recommended that a strong regulator be put in place. The Howard government responded by doing so, thereby lifting productivity, reducing the number of working days lost annually per thousand employees from 224 in 2004 to 24 in 2006 and lowering building costs by 20 to 25 per cent—it worked a wonder.

How the introduction of 33 additional procedures that are diverting attention away from ensuring lawfulness is maintained in this sector is a better thing is beyond me. This is part of an ongoing theme that we see in this Gillard Labor government of Orwellian titled bills: Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition To Fair Work) Bill. The government says it is improving the system through this bill when everybody knows, whether it be people on the Labor side of this chamber or people on this side of the chamber, that there is no such improvement to the role of the regulator here—33 additional processes, extra bureaucracy and procedure. All of the provisions of this bill will slow down, hold back and constrain the role of the regulator in this important sector of our economy—a regulator which has already lifted productivity, improved economic outcomes for ordinary Australians and improved the ability for us to get things done in this country.

Why would we do that? We know why the government is proposing to do that. It is purely a ploy by the Prime Minister to bring the unions and the Labor Left onto her side and save her leadership. It does not matter which group in Australian society you ask. The Australian Industry Group, who have made a series of submissions about this and who have to deal with the construction and building industry all the time, say that behaviour has significantly changed for the better since the ABCC was introduced—that means less unlawful behaviour. There are many indications that the industrial environment in the industry is deteriorating. Watering down protections for the industry and for the community at this time would send entirely the wrong message to those who engage in unlawful or inappropriate behaviour.

We are not talking about any facet of industrial relations here. We are not talking about occupational health and safety, as the member for Petrie tried to divert us onto. We are talking about unlawful behaviour in the building and construction industry. We are talking about things that have held this country back for so long, things that have slowed down our productivity and our ability to get ahead and have made us less competitive internationally. This is very serious economic territory.

It is true that the industrial laws arising from the royal commission treat employers and employees in the construction industry differently from those in other sectors. But why is that? It is because of the profound nature of the unlawful behaviour that was going on in this vital sector of the economy. It was appropriate that we had a profound response and it has worked well. Nobody is disadvantaged by this legislation. Who is the government standing up for—people acting unlawfully? What is the government saying—that there are these shrinking violets out there, union members and union activists, who are being persecuted by police unfairly? Is it seriously the contention of the government that it will weaken this legislation and change the regulation of this industry? I do not think there is a strong case for that. All of the evidence points to the fact that this system is working well, that the current legislation is delivering the results that it was intended to and that any watering down will lead to more industrial disputation. This government wants to take us back to that level we saw in 2004—hundreds of days lost per employee every single year, a drop in productivity and a decline in economic activity—and back to that system where, as the royal commission found, the CFMEU were getting up to $1.5 million per year in casual ticket money. Burdens were placed on business where to get around the old system you had to basically pay additional allowances to get your building and construction work done. This was weakening the strength of our economy. Why should that continue to be the case?

Companies have to pay tax and they have to go through huge regulatory hurdles to get construction and building going in Australia today. Why would we encumber them further with unlegislated procedures through unions or other groups that seek to use their power to threaten industry and construction in this country? Industry and the community at large think there should be strong oversight and regulation of this sector so that we can get on with the business of construction and building.

We saw under previous Labor administrations the difficulties of getting things done in this country. Productivity on the waterfront was so low that something had to be done to lift the productivity rate—and things were done. It used to be the case, and I have heard colloquially from people who worked in the industry at that time, that if you wanted to get goods moved off the waterfront the best thing you could do was to go down to the waterfront and offer a few slabs of beer to the workers. That was the best way to get your goods actually moved on time. We know that in the building and construction industry it is not as nostalgic as that. It was not a nice laid-back Australian approach; it was unlawful activity. The royal commission found hundreds of examples of serious unlawful behaviour that was preventing proper economic activity. Let us look through the provisions. It does not matter whether we are talking about the increased bureaucracy in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, with the presidential member being required to be satisfied that a case has been made before an interview may proceed. It does not matter whether we are talking about the so-called sunset clause, which is in a very short time, just three years, when what business and building and construction really need is a longer period for certainty of investment and the certainty of economic climate. It does not matter about involving the Commonwealth Ombudsman—if you want to bog something down, you bring in the Commonwealth Ombudsman to have a good look at it. It does not matter what provision you go to. Each of these provisions is designed to slow down, impede and reduce effectiveness and to blow out the time that it will take for an effective regulator to make sure unlawful behaviour is not happening. How is that a benefit to anybody?

The only people who will benefit from these changes are the unions. We know that the unions are heavy donors to the Labor Party. We know that the Labor Party is the party of the unions. It is important to ask why, when we are desperate to lift productivity in any way, we would do something to damage productivity in such a vital sector as the construction sector. We do not want to go back to the old days of unlawful behaviour in our construction sector. That would have massive cost implications for our country and it would slow down our economic recovery just when we are coming out of the GFC. It is the wrong time to be doing this—if there is ever a right time.

I could understand all of that if the government were saying, 'Well, we've got into a situation where there is no unlawful behaviour in the construction and building industry. We have reached a point where things are now on a more even keel and we do not need these extraordinary powers.' They are extraordinary powers, I grant you, but it was an extraordinary situation that the royal commission found. There was extraordinary commission of systematic, unlawful behaviour completely crippling and adding a massive burden on a major sector of our economy. If that nirvana has been reached then let the government say so. If it has not then let us not impede the right actions of the tough cop on the beat that have produced such stunning improvements in economic activity, in days lost to strike activity and in productivity, the key challenge of our economy at the moment. Let us not reduce the powers or the scope of effectiveness of the regulator.

I warn the Labor Party that, while they might be wearing fake smiles, glibly enjoying these bills, knowing that there will be a bureaucratic bogdown in procedure in the ABCC and that it will be tougher to enforce the law of this country, the laws in Australia are there for good reason. They are there so that the proper economic activity of the building and construction sector cannot be impeded by unions or other members behaving unlawfully. That is why we have these laws. That is why we have regulation in this sector.

The ABCC has done a great job in delivering these improvements. It is very important in my view for the economy, while we are moving out of the GFC, to ensure that we have a tough cop on the beat, a good-quality regulator that is producing results. We have one in the ABCC and we should not allow a politically driven campaign that will stop that. It is a campaign on behalf of unions, who want to see a resurgence in industrial disputation as a legitimate method. We have seen that in Qantas and in BHP, where there is a week-long strike this week. There is nothing wrong with legitimate industrial disputation—nothing at all. Workers have the right to engage in it. But what we are talking about in the building and construction industry was systematic unlawful behaviour. That is why these bills should be strongly opposed and why we should retain the ABCC as the tough cop on the beat.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We in the Labor Party believe in fairness. We believe in giving people a fair chance, a fair go. We believe in a fair industrial relations system; a system that balances the needs and interests of both employees and employers. We on this side of the House know that fairness does not come at the expense of productivity. We know productivity measures can be achieved by people cooperating together in the workplace and working towards a common aim—employers and employees alike. Rising productivity means boosting our standard of living. It means more Australians get to share in the enormous benefits this country has to offer.

Fairness is a key feature of the Labor Party's approach to industrial relations, which is why we are introducing these amendments to abolish the unfair Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner. The ABCC, especially in its ability to use coercive powers, is an unfair body that is a hangover from Howard era industrial relations. It pits employees against employers, union members against non-union members and worker against worker. It was used to undermine trust and confidence in the construction industry. The ABCC unfairly targeted union officials and the actions of unions. It went after the people who dedicate their lives to protecting the rights and entitlements of others. Employees and unionists in the construction industry faced very different penalties and very different laws from others in the community. That goes against the core of what we in the Labor Party believe in: fairness and inclusion. It is for these reasons that we have always been committed to abolishing the ABCC and replacing it with something fairer. We want to put checks and balances on the powers exercised. We want to make sure there is more consistent treatment of workers in the construction industry, commensurate with what people would expect in the community.

We have long stood by this commitment and have faced challenges in ensuring it becomes law. We are going to keep trying, because it is the right thing to do. We want to work towards a cooperative and productive workplace relations system. We cannot do that if we keep the ABCC in the form that it is in today. The current ABCC is fundamentally against the principles of fairness. Getting the balance right means balancing the rights of employers and employees. That has always been our aim, right across our workplace relations system, and it should not be any different for workers who happen to be in the construction industry.

Labor has always understood that the construction industry is a unique industry. The working environment can be dangerous. Many building workers are men, so it is a pretty robust place to work. It is a transient industry, an industry that is tightly connected with economic booms and economic busts. Construction is normally one of the main indicators of economic growth or decline, and we need to remember that we are talking not just about abstract economic concepts but about people's lives and jobs. We know the industry can be difficult. Because of the unique challenges faced by the industry, it is important to make sure everyone applies the right conduct and continues to be lawful. As is so often the case in industrial relations, that is a tough balancing act—but this is a decision we are not afraid to make. We wanted to make sure workers in the construction industry could be assured they had the same rights as other workers yet also make sure we met the challenges of the industry. We think this legislation gets that balance right. We have ensured safeguards for the protection of employees, and we have also established a specialist inspectorate who knows about the industry. We have made sure that what we are looking at here is a regulator, not an enforcer, who helps the entire industry without pitting people against one another. We wanted to help the industry to work cooperatively and productively, so we have set up a system that will ensure people can work together better. It will help the industry to reach community standards of fairness and it will provide information, advice and assistance to all in the industry.

Many members and employees of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union live and work in my electorate of Fraser. I want to spend a moment here just briefly outlining the important work done by the CFMEU in our local community. The role played by unions in supporting and promoting local community activities is something that is far too easy to overlook. I want to single out Dean Hall, Jason Jennings and Jason O'Mara—three community minded blokes who lead the CFMEU locally and provide invaluable community support. All three are active in our local community. They have all been active for a long time in local rugby league competitions—helping to run them, coaching and playing. Other members and officials are involved with local cricket and soccer competitions. Dean's background in teaching and social work means he is an invaluable asset to the union, providing support for local union members by putting them in touch with services available to them. Even today, as the secretary of the local CFMEU branch, he keeps an eye out for his members and makes sure they are getting the assistance they need.

We know that men's health, particularly men's mental health, has been something we have needed to work hard on. It is too easy for men to neglect their health. In a tough industry like the construction industry, with a premium placed on robust and macho behaviour, this can be even more so. The CFMEU work with the community on men's health issues. They have been extremely active in the area of mental health and have helped set up organisations addressing these needs. The CFMEU provide a barbeque once a week for local workers where people can find out about the various community services available to them. The CFMEU set up a drug and alcohol rehabilitation service. They provide access to financial counselling and superannuation services. They provide access to psychologists. They have set up health and safety training companies and they assist workers and employers to understand their rights and responsibilities. The CFMEU is one of the major financial contributors to the Canberra community, supporting sport, charities and cultural activities. Some of the groups they support include: the W-League champions Canberra United, who were undefeated in their most recent season; women's basketball—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does it include you?

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will pause for a moment. I ask members not to cast aspersions on each other's motives across the chamber.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

AFL in Canberra; the Special Olympics; and cerebral palsy groups. They are a major supporter of the Maori cultural festival and support various programs in schools. They have helped me out with my annual Welcoming the Babies event, which will next be held on 4 March. Anyone listening is invited along to Stage 88 at 10.30 on Sunday morning. The CFMEU will be providing their fantastic barbeque trailer to enable us to have a mobile barbeque at the event. On top of all of this, they are continuing to do the basics of protecting the rights and entitlements of local workers and, most importantly, staying on top of local health and safety matters. I have always been impressed with the ability of the CFMEU to know exactly what is the safety record at pretty much every construction site across Canberra.

We have spent too long listening to those opposite denigrate the CFMEU, its members and its officials as unrestrained thugs wanting to intimidate people and throw their weight around. But, in my experience through my personal contact with this union, the people they are attacking are some of the most dedicated, community minded people I have had the honour of working with. The approach the Liberals took to the union movement, particularly to the CFMEU, would have threatened most of those local activities and many local sporting groups. Without the support shown by the CFMEU—whether it is financial, providing administrative support or encouraging their members to participate in local activities—lots of local institutions would have struggled.

The current legislation is not a return to the old days of endless industrial disputes. The CFMEU, its members and employers all know that those days are over and there is no desire to threaten the productivity of the industry. When we speak about productivity there are two fundamentally different views in this House. Those opposite hear the word 'productivity' and they think about slashing workers' wages and cutting their conditions. The member for Bennelong wants to cut back on penalty rates. Not only would that hurt workers; there is no evidence it would raise productivity. If you look at a graph of the rate of productivity growth, you will see that it continued to fall in the period in which Work Choices was in effect. There is no evidence that the Work Choices system of industrial relations raised the rate of Australian productivity growth.

We on this side of the House believe that productivity is about investing in people and infrastructure. We believe that raising productivity is about raising the quantity and quality of education. We believe it is about having more infrastructure—building more roads, rails and ports—and investing in infrastructure such as the National Broadband Network. When it comes to industrial relations, we believe that treating employees with dignity and respect means they will work more effectively, and there is plenty of evidence to support that viewpoint in management literature. We on this side of the House know that cooperative workplaces lead to better outcomes. Pitting people against their employers and workmates is not the way to achieve good workplace outcomes and it is not the way to high productivity and high living standards in Australia. Cutting trust in the workplace is bad for workers' morale and bad for their mental health, but it is also bad for the bottom line. It is bad for Australia's long-term living standards.

So we on this side of the House support this legislation. We support a long-term agenda of raising productivity by investing in people, skills and infrastructure and not a short-term agenda of cutting conditions and wages. I commend the bill to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. 'Improvement' is a bit of an Orwellian title. It is not actually improving anything; it is making it go backwards. Let me point out why we are here today. We are here today because the Labor Party want to water down the ability of the cop on the beat in the construction industry to do its job properly. Let us have a look at why there had to be an Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, or ABCC, in the first place. The Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, as many speakers have mentioned, was initiated in 2003, and Justice Cole came down with a report which found widespread inappropriate conduct and disregard of the rule of law.

If you listened to the member for Fraser, you would think that the CFMEU were a benevolent fund, a league of gentlemen having afternoon picnics with people in parks. That is not the case at all. Let us go back to why this militant union and its militant behaviour on worksites first had to be looked at. Who remembers Norm Gallagher from the BLF? They had to outlaw the BLF because of its illegal activities. Then it morphed into the CFMEU. In my state, Western Australia, you only have to mention the names Kevin Reynolds and Joe McDonald to understand that they are not a league of gentlemen but are a bunch of rampant thugs and spivs on the worksite. If they were the mafia, they would be done for extortion. They should be brought into line with the rule of law, as Justice Cole found.

Let us have a look at some of the inappropriate behaviour. I refer to the case of the Woodman Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, on page 237 of volume 21 of the Cole royal commission report. The commission again found abuse on a worksite in this case, including:

(a) disregard of the Workplace Relations Act … and the common law by a union and its officers and organisers;

(b) abuse of right of entry provisions by officers and organisers of a union;

(c) disregard of occupational health and safety considerations when exercising rights of entry by officers and organisers of a union;

(d) the preparedness of officers and organisers of a union to make threats of unlawful conduct to attempt to achieve industrial objectives;

(e) disregard of directions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission by a union and its officers and organisers;

It goes on and on. Basically the union were willing to break or thwart the law in any way they could to get their own way. You will hear the Labor Party members in this chamber saying: 'This was a terrible finding by the royal commission. It was a disgraceful finding because it was set up by the previous government.' Can I say that the work of the Cole royal commission and the ABCC was remarkable in bringing peace and productivity to the building sites of Australia. It helped the building and construction industry increase its productivity by 10 per cent. It provided an economic gain of $5.5 billion per annum. It reduced inflation by 1.2 per cent. It increased GDP by 1.5 per cent. In 2004, before the royal commission, the number of working days lost annually was 224 per thousand employees. In 2006, after the commission began its work, it was 24. So it was reduced to 10 per cent of what it was before. That just shows that the commission worked.

Some people have a problem with a cop on the beat, in any jurisdiction, whether you are walking down the street or whatever. The only people who have to worry about the law enforcement of this country are people who are breaking the law, dare I say. If you are defrauding someone, if you are engaging in criminal activity, if you are speeding, of course you are going to worry about the law. But, if you are not doing anything wrong, you will not have to worry about the law.

We heard extraordinary claims in this place that people were being taken off the streets by the ABCC, as though it were some sort of Stasi group from Romania. That is absolute garbage. Of course you get picked up and arrested if you have been breaking the law. I get pulled over by the police if I have been breaking the law. I have people in my electorate who have been subject to burglaries et cetera, and when the police find the perpetrators they pick them up and they arrest them and they deal with them because they have broken the law. Of course in the case where the ABCC was doing its job it had to go and apprehend people. It is just a ludicrous claim, an overstretched claim.

Why do we have this position in this House? Because the members on the other side are joined at the hip to the union movement. They are the product of the union movement. They have to come in here and show their hairy-chested behaviour to the union movement because, firstly, they get preselected by them and, secondly, they get funded by them. The CFMEU, for example, has put millions of dollars into Labor Party campaigns. It is well documented that, before the 2007 election, something like $30 million was put into the Australian Labor Party's campaign by the unions, and the CFMEU was a major contributor.

Let us look at why. On the front bench of the Labor Party, the member for Batman is a former ACTU president. Sitting next to him is the member for Hotham, a former ACTU president. We move along. The member for Rankin was a union organiser. We know the former role of the member for Charlton very well: ACTU secretary. The member for Gorton is ACTU born and bred. The member for Maribyrnong is the dog in the manger in this whole arrangement. He is the former head of the Australian Workers Union, and now he has been put in charge as the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. That is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. You have got the ACTU all along the front bench. Their mates in the union movement are saying: 'We don't want the cop on the beat anymore. We're worried about what they're going to do to us in terms of making us comply with the rule of law and industrial law. So you've either got to change the laws or you've got to get them off our backs. So defund them, put sunset clauses on them, but we don't want them anymore as part of the people that are going to keep an eye on us. We want to stay militant. We want to stay outside of the rule of law. If the cop on the beat has got any say, we can't do that. So you've got to help us.' So dutifully those on the other side, the Labor Party members, are falling in line and helping them.

One of the great things that came out of the Cole royal commission was about the bogus safety issues being used as the reason to enter worksites to intimidate people to get them to join up and belong to the union. In fact, I had an occasion when from a site in Forrestdale one of my constituents, an electrician, rang me and said, 'Don, you've got to help us. We've just had Joe McDonald come into our workplace and crash through our crib room. He didn't seek any permission to be here. He's come in here and threatened us all and said that if we didn't comply he was coming back tomorrow to deal with us all.' You would have seen all that footage on the TV where Joe McDonald was abusing people and threatening people. This is not Fantasyland stuff, this is as plain as the day is and I intend to read out his conviction sheet shortly just to show you that he is still currently getting up to it. So it is about bogus safety issues.

I will quote from page 281 of volume 12 of the Cole report:

… in an industry where the risk of injury is significant the misuse of occupational health and safety issues as an industrial tool is common. Those union officials who so abuse occupational health and safety directly undermine the pre-eminence that such issues ought to have. Safety issues are exploited to provide a justification for the employment of persons named on lists maintained by the union. Safety is exploited as an industrial tool to bring pressure to bear on head contractors, subcontractors and others to achieve desired, non-safety related outcomes or simply to reinforce the power of the union. Safety issues are often raised by union officials in attempts to coerce subcontractors to sign EBAs and to pressure subcontractors not to engage non-union workers at a site.

It says they are abandoned when an EBA is signed or an amount is paid on the account of casual tickets and specialised training. On that point, remember the 'no ticket, no start' signs all over the building sites in Perth. In this democracy with freedom of association there we had, while this union was running its lawless actions, 'no ticket, no start'. How un-Australian is that! You cannot have a job unless you get a ticket off the union. It is not the boss you go to see to join the worksite and it is not the person employing you; it is the union, which wants to control the worksite. We saw this on the Perth to Mandurah line that was being built and the federal government came to the rescue of the then Labor state government by putting a ban on strikes, so that they could finally build the line because it was all blowing out unbelievably because the union had been abusing the situation. In fact, there was some guy, a union official, who had declared it, of all things, 'holy ground' and said that they were going to strike on a daily basis and also when they felt like it.

This law is proposed to bring greater harmony. It was so under us. But now, as I have said—watered down with 30 amendments and a defunding mechanism and a lack of authority for those running it—it is going to see the cop on the beat emasculated. I know the other side hate John Lloyd, the former head of the ABCC, but I note that, in a speech that he made, he made a few observations: that the conduct of the industry had improved since the ABCC was established, that the incidence of unlawful conduct had been reduced and that industrial disputation had fallen to historically low levels—although we do know now that they are increasing under this government because the unions are being giving a wink and nod by this government that they can do what they like and it would not make sure that they did their job—but, however, that culture of exploiting any complacency in regulation was still intact. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry—remember that they are the terrible people who actually employ people—praised the ABCC in a submission to the Senate committee. This submission stated that the only effective response had come from the establishment of the ABCC and it went on to say:

Whilst the industry is still in some areas a tough and demanding one to operate in, it is also one that is now characterised by a much greater sense of predictability and certainty than was the case prior to the establishment of the ABCC. The ACCI is very concerned about any changes that would put its hard-won position at risk and create the potential for a return to the past.

While I have been sitting in here and listening to contributions I have heard—and I am sure we will all hear them again in a moment—that the words 'flexibility' and 'productivity' are dirty words on the other side of the House because they say—and if you read the Hansard you will see they have been saying this—that 'flexibility' and 'productivity' are about another way of reducing working conditions and terms for workers. They are not. In fact, for us to keep in any way competitive with countries off our northern shores that have cheap labour, we have to remain productive and competitive because that is about our competitive edge in terms of pricing et cetera. There is nothing wrong with what productivity and flexibility lead to, as I have said. Senator Sinodinos, in a recent piece, says:

The Review of the Fair Work Act should be revamped to include an assessment by the Productivity Commission of the implications of the act for productivity, flexibility and nurturing direct employer-employee workplace relations. Flexibility is not code for cutting wages; it is code for encouraging work practices that stimulate innovation, and win-win productivity deals that are tailored to the preferences of workers on such matters as work-life balance.

In coming to a conclusion, I note that in last weekend's Australian Financial Review an editorial belled the cat on this issue. I will read as much of it as I can before we finish:

As former vice-president of the ACTU, Anna Booth says, Australia's industrial relations system is outdated and adversarial, and aims to institutionalise conflicts between workers and their bosses, rather than build productive workplaces.

When a former stalwart of the union movement describes our industrial relations system in such scathing terms, the Labor government and the union movement should pay attention.

…

We need a more modern, simpler system which emphasises flexibility, where workers can strike individual bargains with their employers over wages, working hours and other conditions.

Fairfax newspapers are no friend of those on this side of the House, yet this is the Australian Financial Review of last weekend saying that a former union boss, a former ACTU vice-president—Anna Booth—has said you have got to do something about the industrial relations climate in this country because it is getting out of hand. Of course, those on the other side of the House laugh, as that is their way of dismissing it. So they laugh when one of their own finally comes to see the light! It says that while Prime Minister Gillard 'speaks of the New Economy' she has got to deal with the rigidities— (Time expired)

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry that the gallery has had to endure such a speech by the member for Canning. I would recommend the speech by the member for Kennedy if they want to hear a more balanced and thoughtful contribution. The member for Kennedy talked a lot about his younger days working in very dangerous environments in Mount Isa. He talked about the difficulties of raising safety issues at work and what actually happens to workers if they do so.

What we are talking about in this debate on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011 is the abolition of the remnants of the Work Choices regime—the last remnants of a regime that was born of malice, not facts. It was born of a vindictiveness that coloured the entire Howard government and colours to this day the approach of members opposite. It was all about cutting wages, all about cutting overtime, all about abolishing people's rights. You do not hear much about people's rights in the speeches and contributions of those opposite; it is all about the abolition of those rights, the abolition of dignity at work. That is what their approach was all about under Work Choices.

And that has always been their approach. I remember watching a documentary about 'Red Ted' Theodore, a stalwart of the union movement. He said that the conservatives have only ever had two ideas: feed the donkey less and whip him harder. That is pretty much the approach of those opposite. They are not actually interested in things like the right to be in a union, the right to have a safe workplace and the right to bargain for your wages and conditions in good-faith negotiations. They are interested in taking away your wages, taking away your overtime and abolishing people's rights at work—and it has been ever thus.

The ABCC is just a leftover from that era. It is time this body was reformed. It is time it was sent off into the never-never. It is not a perfect institution. Those opposite would have you believe it is an angelic institution that never put a foot wrong and that always did the right thing, and that its extraordinary powers were never abused. But I have had constituents—such as Mr Ark Tribe, who lived in Thompson Beach in my electorate and is somewhat famous in South Australia and around the country—who have come to the attention of these laws. Ark Tribe was an ordinary building worker, an ordinary man trying to get on and do the right thing by his mates. We know how his case wound up. We know that the use of the coercive powers has been both oppressive and ridiculous.

It is working Australians who have been targeted. It is not union officials, not employers, not the big end of town. They have hardly ever been prosecuted by the ABCC. It has a very poor record of employer prosecutions—less than five per cent of all prosecutions. It defies belief that the prosecution rate would be so small, given the well publicised problems with illegal labour, phoenix companies and safety breaches in this industry.

I can cite the headlines in the Adelaide Advertiser, as I have before. An article called 'Dodgy builders "out of control"', on 9 March 2001, was about underpaid workers, many of them foreign, working here illegally and flooding into the South Australian building industry. The most critical thing in all of this is that they were underpaid, so it is not as though they benefited terribly well. They were underpaid by between $11,000 and $18,000 apiece.

Underpayments and breaches of our immigration law are hardly ever prosecuted by the ABCC. It has been a pretty hopeless regulator, and it has been that way because it was born of malice towards working people and a see-no-evil myopia with regard to business. The government's bill, which is a good bill, is a result of the independent inquiry by Murray Wilcox QC. The bill simply takes the recommendations given by Wilcox and puts them into law. There is to be a strong regulator for the building industry. Nobody is arguing that there should not be a cop on the beat, only that it should be within the fair work system. It will be a regulator that operates within community expectations of fairness and justice. We heard the member for Kennedy talk about habeas corpus and a few other ancient rights that were won by our forebears—and they are important rights.

Importantly, this bill has a sunset clause on the compulsory information gathering powers. Before that there will be a review of how those powers are used. These are extraordinary powers. They are not held widely; they are held by very few federal investigative bodies, and they need to be reviewed so that people's rights are not trampled upon. It is important to have safeguards—and safeguards on the use of those coercive powers are introduced in this bill.

Most importantly, there will be an independent assessor who, if a stakeholder seeks to exempt a project from the application of these powers, may decide that the powers do not apply. Where people are doing the right thing there is no need for such extraordinary powers to apply. The bill also removes the regime of punitive penalties. These were, again, a manifestation of that institutional bias against workers—very high fines designed to scare working people from exercising their rights under Australian law. These fines were held out as a mechanism to prevent workers from acting to protect their dignity at their workplace.

In short, this bill fixes the problems with the conduct of the ABCC through its abolition and replacement with a fair and independent regulator. It is a terribly important thing, because I have talked to building workers and I have received their correspondence outlining their deep worry about the operation of the ABCC and their deep concern about being caught up in very tough laws.

This bill comes into this House with a mandate that was delivered at the 2007 election. Most Australians would ask this parliament to respect that mandate. It has been to an election and I think the instinctive will of the Australian people is towards fairness and justice. This legislation represents the abolition of the last obscene edifices of Work Choices.

Much has been said by those opposite about the ABCC. Of late we have seen some headlines in the papers. There was recently an article in the Australian Financial Review entitled 'Inquiry into failed case against unionists', covering a particular case. The Sydney Morning Herald of Monday, 13 February 2012 contained an article headlined 'Building industry watchdog staff to face inquiry'. The Australian, which is always keen to talk about credit card misuse, noted that there were five instances of credit card misuse at the ABCC. This shows that all regulators need oversight to make sure that their conduct is appropriate, that they exercise their powers appropriately and that they serve the interests and the will of the Australian people through this government.

I think this bill does represent justice to building workers, which has been somewhat delayed. It is profoundly unfair to single out one group of workers and place on them such a heavy burden in terms of the law. It is wrong and it is absolutely unlike this country to do so. We do want people to respect the rule of law and we do want people to behave appropriately at building sites, but we do not want an institutional bias against workers and we do not want selective laws in this country. I commend the bill to the House.

Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. The building and construction industry is one of the most important industries in our economy. The Master Builders Association has estimated the value of construction work required over the next decade at $2.4 trillion. The residential building industry in particular is a key driver in our economy. According to a submission from the Housing Industry Association, Australia's housing industries directly contributed approximately $72.4 billion to Australia's economy in 2009-10. This accounted for 5.6 per cent of Australia's gross domestic product. If we combine this with the primary and secondary businesses that indirectly supply to the construction industry, we are looking at much stronger figures in terms of employment and output. The building and construction industry also employs over a million people, representing approximately nine per cent of the Australian workforce. As you can see, Madam Deputy Speaker, this is a very important industry for our country and one that is vital to our economy.

Today, those opposite are trying to introduce a bill that compromises the success of this industry and of those who work in it. They are breaking another election promise by trying to abolish the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, which was established by the coalition in 2005 following the 2002 Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry.

The Cole commission found that the building and construction industry was characterised by a widespread disregard for the law. It catalogued over 100 types of unlawful and inappropriate conduct. This included illegal strikes, pattern bargaining, right of entry infringements and the coercion of non-unionised subcontractors. The Cole commission also found that existing regulatory bodies had insufficient powers and resources to enforce the law. This is why one of its recommendations was to establish a specialist and permanent regulatory body to look into this conduct.

It was the Howard government that established the ABCC in 2005 and the commission has since been instrumental in curbing illegal industrial action and lawlessness in the construction industry. It has also taken a strong stand against union thuggery in the industry—yes, union thuggery—and, by keeping disputes to a minimum, the ABCC has helped to increase productivity and lower construction costs all around Australia. Since its inception in 2005 it has helped the industry to increase productivity by 10 per cent, provide an annual economic welfare gain of $5.5 billion per year, reduce inflation by 1.2 per cent and increase GDP by 1.5 per cent. So it is doing its job. The number of working days lost annually per 1,000 employees in the construction industry has fallen from 224 in 2004 to 24 in 2006. At the same time, building costs have fallen by 20 to 25 per cent and long project delays have been dramatically reduced.

According to the Housing Industry Association, the commission has:

… been doing a sound and effective job of law enforcement, clamping down on unions and others for illegal industrial behaviour and right of entry breaches.

This is keeping the unions in check. It goes on to say:

However its work is far from finished. Aggressive and unlawful industrial action persists as an area of concern for the industry.

It is clear that work still needs to be done and that the ABCC is doing this work independently and effectively. The type of conduct that Cole identified cannot be easily reversed. It is the type of conduct that needs targeted resources to effect lasting cultural change. Whilst the ABCC has succeeded in improving conduct, the culture of lawlessness identified in the Cole report has only been suppressed—and, yes, it still exists.

This bill will abolish the ABCC and replace it with an inferior inspectorate division of the Fair Work Ombudsman. The new body that has been established within Fair Work Australia to replace the Office of the ABCC is not an independent body. It is controlled by the minister. It will become so bogged down in paperwork and bureaucracy that it will not have the time and resources to do its job properly. It is not a simpler model; it is a more complicated model that makes it more difficult to enforce law and order in the building and construction industry. A softened approach is far from what the industry needs right now. This bill will cut the maximum penalties for illegal misbehaviour from $110,000 to $33,000, reducing the disincentives to engage in unlawful behaviour. According to the HIA, the procedural requirements for this bill are 'overly bureaucratic, costly, prescriptive and impractical'. With this bill we see the ALP cowering to the demands of its union paymasters, sacrificing the independence of small business subcontractors and subjecting the building and construction industry to a new era of industrial administration and uncertainty. This bill is another broken promise and a ploy to bring the unions and the Labor Left on side to save the Prime Minister's leadership.

The bill allows for the powers of the ABCC to be switched off for individual worksites that have a good history of industrial relations. This means that the unions can seek to have the law not apply until such times as problems occur. The unions used to protect workers, now they persecute them and suffocate the industries that seek to employ them. The government has already introduced measures that make it tough for the building and construction industry. This will only make things worse.

Increasing productivity and flexibility should be the primary focus of our industrial relations policy. In Macarthur we have many new housing developments and suburbs being built, which will accommodate an extra 200,000 new residents in the area over the next 25 years. That is a population increase of more than 300 per cent. The building and construction work taking place in my electorate employs hundreds of workers from Macarthur and south-western Sydney. It is a major part of the industry that is stimulating our economy and keeping locals employed.

We also have the Macarthur Building Industry Skills Centre right on our doorstep. This state-of-the-art training centre, located in the Ingleburn industrial precinct, was established to meet the needs of industry growth in south-western Sydney. It offers a comprehensive range of pre-vocational, trade and licensing programs. The centre delivers trade training using an integrated project based approach to skills development. This means students can gain experience on real building projects and have access to plant, equipment and resources of current industry standards. We have some very talented young men and women attending this training centre, working hard towards a fulfilling career in the building industry.

The future of these workers and the risk to the Australian economy is why we cannot afford for the building industry to return to its unlawful practices of the past. This is why the coalition strongly opposes the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. We believe that every Australian deserves to be able to go work and operate in an environment where basic law and order is enforced. Employers and employees alike wanted to get rid of the illegality that plagued the building and construction industry. The only people who will benefit from the government's move are of course the unions.

The bill will strip away the protections for workers to work in a safe and lawful environment. It abolishes the body that ensures that law and order is enforced in the building and construction industry. Why would we support this bill when the ABCC has delivered real results for Australia? To put a stop to its good work would roll out the red carpet to union thuggery, coercion and disputation. I ask those opposite to reconsider their responsibility to this country, Australian workers and our economy before voting on this bill.

All we need to do is look back at the recommendation from the Cole royal commission. It stated that we need:

… free of the pressures on the participants in the industry, which will ensure that participants comply with industrial, civil and criminal laws applicable to all Australians …

In its submission, HIA told us that it does not believe the proposed legislation will continue to deliver the strong, independent and robust enforcement body that the building industry requires. It also said that 'a watering down' of the existing powers will result in a return to the industrial lawlessness identified by the Cole royal commission. How could we even consider passing this bill when we know that the Australian building industry needs a strong, independent enforcer to maintain lawful practice and stop the bad behaviours of the past? We simply cannot afford to replace the ABCC, which has helped to increase productivity and lower construction costs around Australia.

In its submission the HIA states that it does not support this bill and that the legislative and institutional framework established as a result of the Cole royal commission must be retained in its current form. We cannot pretend that the findings of the Cole royal commission do not exist.

I believe that we must oppose this bill so that we do not subject the building and construction industry to a new era of industrial administration and uncertainty. We must oppose this bill for the sake of our economy and Australian jobs. We must oppose this bill to ensure the protection and safety of our workers. And we must oppose this bill to avoid the industry's unlawful practices of the past and to ensure its strength and prosperity for the future.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. It was interesting that the previous speaker talked about how this bill would make it overly bureaucratic in terms of fairness in the workplace. To the previous speaker I say that I do not see it as bureaucratic to put in some checks and balances and oversight to ensure that individual's rights are being properly protected. I see it as fundamental in a democracy that we do not have an authoritarian group with no transparency enforcing very big impingements on personal rights. There is a need for oversight and checks and balances. That is what it means to live in a democracy. I disagree strongly with the previous speaker's suggestion that this is just a bit of over-bureaucratic paperwork. It is an important bill for providing important oversight and checks and balances to the impingement of rights of workers, which the Howard government was so proud of.

Fairness in the workplace is a core value of the Australian Labor Party, and this Labor government has always strived to ensure that workplace relations is built on a system of fairness. This is in very stark contrast to the previous Liberal government, which made it very clear to working Australians that fairness in the workplace was not high on its priority list. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the previous Liberal government showed contempt for working people and their right to fairness in the workplace. We all know that former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard ripped away the wages and stripped back the conditions of ordinary Australians in both his first and second waves of industrial relations reforms. Mr Howard really showed contempt for the rights of working people through the establishment of the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner.

The previous Liberal government's Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner has not functioned in a fair way. It has taken this Labor government to act to replace it to ensure that a new body is part of the mainstream fair work system and incorporates new safeguards to protect the rights of workers.

While I recognise the legislation before the House today does not go as far as perhaps some would like, I believe it strikes an important balance between the rights of workers and those of employers. The operation of the previous Liberal government's industrial regulator has been criticised by many people, including me and many other stakeholders, for a long time. I am pleased that this bill will inject some fairness and some checks and balances into this area.

The purpose of the ABCC is allegedly to monitor and promote standards of contact in the building and construction industry and involves investigating suspected contraventions and bringing legal proceedings when required. As a statutory body, the ABCC should have been play the role of an umpire within the building and construction industry. But, as we know, that was not the case. The ABCC was extremely unbalanced in the way it did its job. In reality, the ABCC's role has been an application of a system that unfairly targets employees without affording them the appropriate safeguards and protections, and it has consistently failed to enforce the responsibilities of employers. It is clear from the number of prosecutions of employee organisations when compared with employer groups that this regulator has unfairly targeted unions. More importantly, it has unfairly targeted ordinary Australians. The opposition may try and argue that that is because more employees do the wrong thing, but I can tell you that I have been out on worksites where there have been employers doing the wrong thing and it would be very hard to imagine that every building and construction employer in this country always did the right thing. We know from a lot of health and safety reports in a whole range of areas that this is not the case. Instead, the ABCC was focused on just targeting employees and employers. The ABCC has created a culture of intimidation for workers, who have at times felt unable to voice legitimate concerns for fear of compulsory interrogation, which failed to afford workers appropriate protections and safeguards, including their right to full legal representation.

We have often heard of the effectiveness of the ABCC. One test I am sure many Australians would like to apply to the ABCC is whether it stopped dangerous occurrences in the construction industry. In 2004-05 there were 18 fatalities recorded in the building and construction industry, in 2005-06 there were 25, in 2006-07 there were 28 and in 2007-08 there were 36. You can see that with the ABCC coming into effect in 2005, it has not decreased the number of fatalities in the building and construction area but has been correlated with an increase. Rather than holding both employees and employers to account it would seem that the ABCC has operated in a way that has unfairly targeted employees and their unions while paying little attention to whether or not employers are paying their workers correctly. One particular case is the case that the member for Wakefield mentioned, and that is the case of Ark Tribe. During the time in which he was being pursued by the ABCC there were reports of migrant Korean workers being worked to death by unscrupulous employers. But where was the ABCC on this issue? It was not heard.

It has come to this Labor government to fix this system and ensure that there is balance and fairness. The bill before the House does seek to abolish the ABCC and is in line with the recommendations outlined in the Transition to Fair Work Australia for the building and construction industry report by the Office of the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate, released in 2009 by Justice Murray Wilcox QC. Justice Wilcox engaged in extensive consultation with all stakeholders in the building and construction industry. The government consulted with industries and state and territory governments as part of developing this legislation. One of the important points that was raised was that the ABCC did need to be replaced, and replaced with a fair work building industry inspectorate. This was part of the recommendations of the report. The building inspectorate created by this bill will be headed by an independent director appointed by the minister. Importantly, the director managing the operations of the building inspectorate will have full operational autonomy and will receive recommendations on a whole range of issues, including from a newly established advisory board. The creation of the inspectorate will significantly improve the rights and safety of construction workers by ensuring that they are treated equal to employers.

The bill will also make a number of other changes to improve the rights of workers. For example, if a person is summonsed, which will only occur if the information cannot be retrieved in any other way, they can choose to be represented by a lawyer and their right not to disclose legally sensitive information will be recognised. I find it interesting that the opposition has decided that this is not an appropriate change. This is about the rights of people and their right to have representation. I am surprised that some of the members opposite who are have regularly stood up in this place and talked about how representation is important and how people have the right to be legally represented should decide that they could not support this for construction workers. Why shouldn't they be able to have legal representation? Why should they be different from other workers in this country? Is it because the coalition just does not like workers in the building and construction industry? It is hard to know why they would deny them these rights.

Workers may also be reimbursed for reasonable expenses and have their examinations videotaped and reviewed by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Once again, something that the previous speaker said was 'too much bureaucracy'. Well, I would say that this is an important check and balance to ensure that any particular powers that are used by the inspectorate are monitored and able to be looked at properly. Furthermore, any person who has been interviewed will no longer be prevented from telling others what happened. This allows for transparency to ensure that there is no secrecy. The bill also includes a sunset clause which will mean that coercive powers will cease to exist after three years so that a review can be conducted to assess compliance in the building and construction industry following the implementation of this legislation.

These are very important recommendations. This is very important legislation to ensure we return fairness to the workplace—fairness where both employers and employees are treated equally—so that employees are not unfairly targeted where employers who do the wrong thing get away with it. We know where the coalition stands on this. They refuse to recognise the rights of ordinary working Australians. They have done it once, they will do it again. However, it has been left to this government to restore fairness, to restore balance. We are going ahead with an inspectorate that will focus on the building and construction industry, but with that we will have some oversight, we will have some checks and balances and we will restore fairness for both employees and employers with a truly independent umpire.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011. This will see the abolition of the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and with it the role of the commissioner and the high penalties that applied to the industry for breaches to industrial law.

This bill is another ideologically driven, economically damaging, decision by this government. At a time when we are seeing heightened levels of industrial disputes, falling productivity and increasing unemployment there could not be a worse moment for such legislative change. To understand the seriousness of this decision, we need to retell the story of the birth of the ABCC, the rationale for its existence, its record of achievement and the impact of its abolition.

The ABCC was established by the Howard government in 2005 following the findings of the Cole royal commission, which reported in March 2003. Commissioner Cole, who had a broad mandate to look into coercive, violent and unlawful practices in the building and construction industry, detailed over 100 different types of unlawful conduct, painting a disturbing picture of lawlessness in this most important sector. The inadequacies of existing regulatory bodies were also highlighted, paving the way for the independent ABCC.

In the words of Cole, the building and construction industry 'departs from the standards of commercial and industrial conduct exhibited in the rest of the Australian economy' and that to date:

… there has been an insufficient determination on the part of government to establish structures which will enable the industry to operate fairly and productively and in a manner respecting the rights of individuals. There has been an inadequate structure to enforce the law and usual standards applicable in other industries.

One of the cases that Cole focused on was in my home state of Victoria, involving the well-known Japanese food processor, Saizeriya. Saizeriya had planned a major investment of over $200 million in Victoria, which would have created hundreds of jobs directly and up to 3,000 jobs indirectly. Unfortunately, this company became the target of disruptive union behaviour—strikes, boycotts, work bans, restrictions on contractors. As a consequence, the first plant was opened more than a year after schedule in 2003 and the parent company became so disillusioned with the experience that they withdrew all their further investment, dealing a significant blow to the state of Victoria. In the words of the royal commission:

Saizeriya Australia's experience starkly calls into question the effect upon foreign investment requiring building and construction work of any magnitude in Victoria when such work may be subject to unlawful and inappropriate conduct and actions by unions.

Regrettably, in my state of Victoria, Saizeriya has not been the only such experience. The Wonthaggi desalination plant is another recent case in point with 193 days lost to industrial action as a result of unruly union behaviour.

With the building and construction industry contributing billions of dollars each year to our economy—in fact making up a remarkable 7.7 per cent of GDP—we cannot afford anything but a most efficient and effective sector. It is in that context that one can see what a negative impact the abolition of the ABCC will have. Under the ABCC, productivity increased by 10 per cent providing a windfall economic gain of $5.5 billion, GDP rose by 1.5 per cent, inflation fell by 1.2 per cent and the number of working days per 1,000 employees in the construction industry decreased from 224 in 2004 to 24 in 2006 and building costs were slashed by between 20 and 25 per cent. This is the report card of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. In fact, over the past year its investigations have uncovered more than 900 breaches of workplace relations laws and the imposition of $2.5 million in penalties. During its operation, the ABCC has prosecuted more than 70 cases. Unfortunately, these dramatic improvements to these key indicators are now under threat from Labor's new legislative regime. There will be, under this legislation, no equivalent substitute for the ABCC. In its place will sit a new body that is within the confines of Fair Work Australia, the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate, which is responsible up the line to the minister, a stark contrast to the independent body, the ABCC, capable of a frank and fearless approach and not beholden to a political directive.

The minister will not be passive, nor is it envisaged that he or she will be. They will have the express authority to give the regulator written directions about its programs and priorities, which could forseeably see less focus on the unlawfulness of union conduct. The perceived conflict of interest here is real. A Labor Party, whose campaigns are funded to a significant degree by the union movement, is going to be reluctant to display an even hand when it comes to regulating their behaviour in the workplace.

What is more, the government's legislation will also lessen the penalties for unlawful conduct and reduce the deterrent for such behaviour. Under the legislation penalties will be reduced by a third, with maximum sanctions being $33,000 for a body corporate and $6,600 for a person. Significantly, as John Lloyd, former ABCC commissioner and now Director of the Work Reform and Productivity Unit at the prestigious Institute of Public Affairs, has pointed out, this comes at a time when the courts are responding 'to repeat offences by a number of unions and their officials' with higher penalties. In fact, he said, '12 cases have resulted in penalties in excess of the Fair Work Act maxima', the majority of which have been made since 2009.

Other worrying changes in this legislation include the watering down of the coercive powers, the switch-off provisions and additional red tape through new administrative processes. It is no wonder, then, that industry stakeholders, respected economic commentators and state governments are lining up to condemn the government's legislative changes. Heather Ridout, outgoing head of the Australia Industry Group, has said, 'The ABCC is carrying out a vital role and is needed today as much as ever.' The National Electrical and Communications Association has said:

… the ABCC has been effective in removing the worst instances. Removing the ABCC or emasculating its powers will see increased inappropriate behaviour and this will lead to the costs of projects blowing out and delays in construction.

The Australian Mine and Metals Association is concerned the changes 'can only lead to more unlawful behaviour and economic vandalism'. Master Builders Australia has said that the 'parliament cannot ignore such court findings and convictions and should not agree to any watering down of the current powers'. And the government of Victoria, where the building and construction industry employs 9.2 per cent of the workforce, contributing 6.6 per cent of the gross state product, said in its submission that the bill 'would hamper the ability of the industry regulator to deal with unlawful industrial action quickly and effectively'.

There it is: universal and unanimous condemnation of the government's actions, yet they refuse to listen. But it should not be any surprise to us. We have seen this government's record when it comes to the workplace and industrial relations reform. The Gillard government have overseen an economy that is now characterised by declining productivity, rising unemployment, worsening industrial action and now a weakening in the accountability mechanisms which protect both workers and their employers. On their watch they have seen unions emboldened, penalty rates smash small business and investors take their money offshore. This cannot continue, but unfortunately it will with this Labor government at the helm.

The minister, Bill Shorten, tells us he has 'always supported, and continues to support, a strong regulator in the building and construction industry'. But, again, these are just cheap words, betrayed by a completely different intent. In my short time in this place I have quickly learnt: do not judge Labor by what they say but by what they do. The abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission is another perfect example. This government do not believe in lawful industrial relations practices, this government do not believe in accountability, transparency and rising productivity—and, most of all, this government do not believe in putting a cop on the beat to police their union mates. This is bad legislation, and I join with my colleagues from the coalition in opposing it.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a problem with the rule of law in this country: it does not emanate from workers and their unions but, far too often, from this parliament. The rot really set in under the Howard government. When it came to immigration we saw the beginning of defining places within Australia as not really Australia, and the defining of people as having two tiers of rights. We saw terrorism laws that removed longstanding rights to silence. With Work Choices we saw the introduction of laws that gave ministers in this place the right to remove people's legitimate rights to bargain, without any say and without a hearing, and to the Labor government's shame they have kept those laws.

But we also saw the enshrining of a principle in the building industry that undermines one fundamental tenet of the rule of law. The rule of law says that you have one set of laws that applies equally to all people and that they will be judged according to an equal standard, regardless of where they come from and regardless of their status. These laws in the building industry removed the right to silence that people had, simply because they worked in a particular industry and because they turned up to work in boots and a hard hat instead of a suit and tie. That fundamental offenceagainst one of the most basic principles of the rule of law rightly drew opprobrium not just from those people who were affected but from people right across the spectrum who were concerned about civil liberties and from observers internationally who looked at these labour laws and said they did not meet basic civil rights standards.

But more than that, the legislation, which was established under the former Howard government, set up a juggernaut that had significant resources and that turned its direction and its fire on one particular group. If you look at the statistics you will see that, between October 2005 and June 2011, the ABCC commenced 91 prosecutions. Eighty-six of them were against workers, their representatives and their unions and only five were against employers. To this government's shame it became no better with the change of government. From 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010, 29 proceedings were commenced against workers and their unions and none against employers. That is what this institution that was created was designed to do. It was not a neutral policing agency within the industry; it had a specific target. You just have to look at how it conducted its activities to see what it did.

Throughout all of this the Greens have been steadfast in their defence of the rule of law. In 2005 we opposed the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act in the Senate. In 2004 we moved to disallow the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Regulations and used the opportunity to highlight the harsh impact the laws were having. We took an explicit policy to repeal the act and to abolish the ABCC to both the 2007 and the 2010 elections. In 2008 we introduced a private senator's bill to repeal the act in its entirety. In 2008-09 we reiterated our strong position in Senate committee inquiries and, in 2010, we moved a motion in the Senate noting the recent ILO report, which I will have more to say about in a moment, on the ABCC and calling on the government to abolish the ABCC.

We have voluntarily signed up to International Labour Organisation conventions that apply internationally, that preserve the right to organise, freedom of assembly and the right to bargain. On no less than eight separate occasions the International Labour Organisation has said to our government that the specific building industry legislation contravenes those international standards that they have signed up to. That is why, as I have alluded to before, we have had not only international law groups but civil liberties groups including, amongst others, Liberty Victoria—which is not necessarily well known for saying that it is on the side of workers but is a staunch defender of the basic principles of the rule of law, including the right to silence—come out and condemn this law, joining the likes of the ILO.

There was a time when the Labor Party agreed with all of that, when they voted against the ABCC in the Senate. In 2007, in their Forward with Fairness policy, they said:

Labor does not believe in separate industrial rules and regulations for different industries. Under Labor all employers, employees and unions across all industries will be required to comply with the rules …

They went on to talk about having specialist divisions in Fair Work Australia. It seems, though, that when it comes to Labor and its factions it does not take that long to shift on fundamental principles. If you accept everything that the coalition has said you would believe that the ABCC was being abolished tomorrow. If only that were the case.

Instead, this bill before parliament retains some of the worst excesses of the Howard government. People in the building industry remain singled out for special treatment by virtue of no other fact than they work in that industry. We still have an inspectorate that remains, for all intents and purposes, an autonomous entity—a continuation of that prosecuting juggernaut, established by the coalition, which will continue to pursue workers and their representatives with unfair proportionality. But, most distressingly, the coercive powers still remain in the legislation.

After passing this legislation, Labor members would do well to remember one thing: the same worker whom they will stand next to one day, wearing a hard hat and fluoro vest, for a photo opportunity could on the next day be taken in for questioning and forced to name their workmates. That remains a fact under this bill. Workers in such an industry will continue to enjoy less liberty than workers in other industries and this kind of McCarthyism that was begun under the Howard government will continue. Perhaps the most distressing thing about that is that we have in this parliament an opportunity to fix it. We have enough support on the crossbench to remove these coercive powers and go back to something that the Labor Party only a few short years ago said it believed in. The fact that Labor are choosing not to do that is something that they themselves will have to explain to the public.

I heard a number of times during this debate a reference to the former Cole royal commission as if it were some authoritative basis for the laws that were established here. I had the privilege of representing people during that royal commission and let me give you, Madam Deputy Speaker, a couple of anecdotes about how that worked. First of all the commission was not a court. The commission was not an entity where everyone had the right to equally defend everything that was put against them in a way that you might expect in a court. So what happened? I remember one day when I was representing some people in Western Australia waking up to read in the newspaper, 'Worker locked in shipping container by unionist'. That apparently is what the royal commission was going to hear about over the next couple of days. We turned up, we heard an opening from counsel assisting about this newspaper report about a shipping container and we sat there for two days listening to the evidence. Not once did they mention a shipping container. They could not find one witness to come and corroborate it and give evidence to the royal commission. They moved on, but of course the damage was done, because this was not a fair proceeding like a court and instead was trial by media and trial by royal commission.

I remember another instance where it was said that at a site at a university employees and their union had taken unlawful industrial action and attempted to coerce a small subcontractor by walking off the job. We got halfway through that when it was found out that the reason they walked off the job was that the employer was directing them to work on a rostered day off against the enterprise agreement. So we made an application to call the employer before the royal commission to investigate the employer's breach of the enterprise agreement. No sooner had we made that application than that whole case study was shut down and we moved on to something else. That royal commission was not about looking at the real issues in the industry, the issues that arise around sham contracting which defraud the revenue of the Commonwealth potentially of up to $10 billion. It was not about looking at the exploitation of overseas labour and not paying them at local rates but rather underpaying them, which threatens them and threatens locals. It was not about looking at any of that; it was about coming up with an outcome that would enable the legislation that preceded this legislation to set up the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

If you want to know how this entity has been behaving lately, this entity that is there supposedly to neutrally police activity in the building sector, just a week or so ago in the Federal Court one case was dismissed when the judge described as sloppy the investigative practices of the ABCC. But then, more spectacularly, a criminal case that was going on a week or so ago in Victoria that relied on ABCC evidence has now resulted in the ABCC commissioner investigating his own inspectors because they destroyed evidence. Such was their zeal to see prosecutions against workers and their unions proceed that they were prepared to destroy evidence. It is no wonder it is being investigated. But it explains exactly what this organisation was really set up to do and what it is on about.

That is why it is so disappointing that Labor is choosing to retain a version of it. Now, I am not saying there are no problems in the industry. I would be the last one to say construction workers are all angels. But if we were serious about tackling problems in the industry then we would turn our attention to sham contracting, we would turn our attention to the fact that often workers are told, 'Yes, you can come and work on this job but we need you to incorporate and give us a Pty Ltd letterhead.' We would turn our attention to the underpayment and exploitation of overseas workers. And we would give the ABCC or its replacement coercive powers to investigate those things. But we don't do that—no, we continue along the path set by the Howard government.

It is a basic matter of principle. I think there should be one principle that should guide how we deal with this issue. You do not make things better by removing people's rights. You succeed in politics and in lawmaking by standing for something, by believing in one law for all and then being prepared to stand up for it and implement it when you are elected. If someone could walk into an office or a shop and drag someone away for questioning and force them to name names and force them to give details, there would be an outcry, and rightly so. People in this country do not deserve fewer rights simply because they turn up to work in boots and a hard hat compared with a suit and tie. It is my strong hope that the government will consider the amendments that we will be putting forward later so that we can get rid of these inequitable laws once and for all.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to briefly contribute to this important debate. In doing so I follow a number of speakers on my side of the House who have made the key points about how damaging this legislation is. It is always an interesting thing to follow the member for Melbourne, and it is no exception in this debate. It does transport us to another galaxy, which he inhabits. It is not a galaxy in the future, it is a place in the past.

When you cut through everything the member for Melbourne just said in this debate, it is quite clear that he wants to transport us back to a place of lawlessness in the construction industry. The member for Melbourne is disappointed that the government's broken promise is not good enough. Whilst he very fleetingly made reference to the possibility that there might have been bad behaviour in the building industry, as some kind of cover, there is no doubt that he saw no problem with the way things were a decade and a half ago. The member for Melbourne saw no problem with the sort of conduct we saw in our construction industry.

As the member for Mayo pointed out in this debate last week, the building commission that this legislation seeks to abolish was not something the former Howard government simply dreamt up. If you listen to the member for Melbourne, you would think that was the case, that there was no problem that needed solving, and that the legislation of the former Howard government was simply brought into this place for no necessary reason. As the member for Mayo rightly pointed out in this House a little under a week ago, the Cole royal commission spoke volumes about the state of our building industry. The commission's findings were that it was an industry plagued, as the member for Mayo said, by 'unacceptable behaviour, violence, corruption, threats and standover tactics' and, as he eloquently put it, it was 'the law of the jungle'.

It was directly as a result of that royal commission that the legislation by the Howard government was introduced. Once it was introduced, its effect was there for all to see. Productivity improved and the savings to the national economy improved. It was not just the lawlessness—the member for Melbourne talks about the rule of law—there was the law of the jungle, as the member for Mayo said, prior to the introduction of the Howard government legislation. This legislation, which is designed to neuter that, to abolish it, is something that Labor always had in mind because unfortunately, in a choice between the national good with this policy and their demanding friends in the union movement, there is no choice for those opposite—the national interest runs a poor second.

We have before us today another example of what those opposite view as their absolute priority, namely, the value of their word before an election. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing in this House is a situation where, if this legislation is passed, we can look into the future and know what will occur because it will be a repeat of the past, the past failure that was dealt with effectively and which those opposite will be happy to see a re-run of. As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out last Friday in a keynote address to the Master Builders Association, we need to be very clear what we will see a return of and the sort of work that will not be done in the future.

I have mentioned the member for Mayo's contribution and his detailing of the Cole royal commission. As the Leader of the Opposition outlined, the productivity improvement was of the order of $6 billion a year as a result of getting the industry under control and out of the jungle, and removing, limiting and reducing, where possible, the sort of conduct that everyday Australians find unacceptable and, more to the point, do not want to pay for. It is not just a question of those involved in the industry and the law of the jungle. This affects every single Australian. It cascades through the price and cost chain. It affects businesses and their capacity to be profitable and to employ people. All of those points have been very adequately made by speakers on our side of the House.

As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, an example is the Epping Markets dispute, just 18 months ago, which resulted in locks being superglued, entrances being blocked and fires being lit. This was a dispute out of control. The watchdog took action over the illegalities at the Epping markets and fines and costs of over half a million dollars were imposed on the people involved. In the past, all those activities would have occurred without the adequate capacity to stop it or to take remedial action. Those opposite know exactly what they are doing with the legislation that they have brought before the House today. They know they are turning the clock back and opening the way to the sorts of abuses that the royal commission uncovered. They know exactly what they are doing. This is not a question of naivety on behalf of those opposite. The Australian public ought to know it. They will certainly know it by the time of the next election. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we will fight this legislation and if we fail in both houses we will restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission at the first available opportunity. We will, as he said, restore it with new vigour, because of the necessity for it. This legislation is bad legislation. The government knows it is so, but it is legislating at the behest of the union movement to the cost of the wider Australian community.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I spoke on this building and construction industry legislation in the last parliament on 13 August 2009. I said then, and I say now, that I believe there should be one law for all. Whether you live in Perth, Palm Beach, the Torres Strait or Tasmania, the law should apply to everyone equally. I believe that should apply to public servants. I believe that should happen in the classrooms, on the construction sites and even in the parliament. Those opposite have form on this issue, and this body, with its draconian laws, is a pet project of those opposite. They persecuted the unions and prosecuted workers. The truth is that those opposite would restore the ABCC if they got into office and they would give power to the ABCC or its new creation. Guess what that new creation would do? I want all those in the gallery to listen to this. This is the power that the ABCC has. It has the power to compel people to attend interviews and answer questions and to compel them to provide documents and information as to that investigation. Those interrogations are conducted in private and interviewers are not allowed to disclose to anyone what happens during that investigation. The penalty for not complying with this notice is six months imprisonment. There is no right to silence under the laws of the ABCC. In other words, people can be compelled under those laws to dob in their mates on industrial matters.

The ABCC and the legislation that covers it were never meant to deal with criminal conduct. It is concerned with the regulation of industrial behaviour. On this side of politics, we believe that if anyone engages in criminal or unlawful activity on a construction site they should be prosecuted with the full force of the law and that the criminal laws in this country, in the states and territories, are adequate. I have not heard anyone opposite say that there is some deficiency in the criminal law of the state, territory and Commonwealth governments of this country which means that we need to criminalise the capacity of a body like the ABCC to persecute and prosecute workers, including friends of mine such as Bradley O'Carroll, the head of the Plumbers Union in Queensland, who was wrongly charged.

I have heard people opposite wax lyrical about what the Howard government did on Work Choices. I have heard them talk about perceived lawlessness and what the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry found. Let us look at what the Cole commission really found. The Cole commission was a partisan, politicised body from the start. The Howard government tried to bring in the ABCC, but they could not because they did not have a majority in the Senate. When they got a majority in the Senate, they brought the ABCC in. Of the 392 incidences of so-called unlawful behaviour in the final report of the Cole commission, only one was ever pursued and it was ultimately dropped without being prosecuted to its finality. Those opposite spent millions of dollars when they were on this side of the place alleging that there was unlawful conduct everywhere, yet no-one was charged and no-one was found guilty.

As I have said, the Howard government established the ABCC. The ABCC is simply geared towards a one-sided approach in industrial relations. In the 2009-10 year, the annual report of the ABCC disclosed that 55 per cent of its investigations were directed at trade unions. Only seven per cent of its investigations in 2009-10 were directed at employers. Unions or employees were the subject of, on average, 76.5 per cent, or more than three-quarters, of all ABCC investigations between 1 July 2006 and 30 June 2009. The overwhelming majority of the activities of the ABCC were geared towards one purpose: to make sure that the unions and their workers on construction sites were both prosecuted and persecuted. That is the reality of what went on. The ABCC carried out secret investigations where legal professional privilege, the right to silence and the right to reimbursement of reasonable expenses were not provided. There was effectively no independent oversight, and we know the person in charge has gone on to work for a right-wing think tank. This body was politicised from the word go.

The truth is that the powers given to this body were extraordinary. Section 52 of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 talks about requirements in relation to excuses. Section 53(1) of the legislation says:

A person is not excused from giving information, producing a document, or answering a question …

Section 52(7) overrides the secrecy provisions in other laws. In other words, these sections override any laws in relation to any other body, including ASIO, and these laws include coercive powers, the protection of journalists' sources, privacy laws and cabinet confidentiality. That is according to Professor George Williams. And that is what has happened.

This government is about bringing in safeguards and oversight. We are about making sure that workers get a fair go in the workplace and that the ABCC is expunged or eradicated from the industrial landscape of this country. The legislation before this House goes a long way towards equalising the balance in this field—a fair, simple and equal balance. Just as Work Choices needed to be expunged, the ABCC needs to go.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.