Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, representing the Minister for Employment. How will the proposed royal commission into trade union governance and corruption prevent honest workers from being ripped off by dishonest union bosses?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will call the Minister for Education, but before I do there will be silence on my left—and that particularly includes member for Charlton.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the question from the member for Dobell, who is a very good member who replaced a very bad member in the seat of Dobell at the last election. It is particularly apposite for the member for Dobell to ask this question about royal commissions, because the royal commission that we announced on Monday into union governance and corruption will go to the heart of issues like slush funds in unions—slush funds like the one conducted by the Health Services Union, which was represented as national secretary by the former member for Dobell.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There will be silence on my left. I realise it is Thursday and I realise that people are anxious to return home. Some of you might like to return more quickly than others.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand the sensitivity of the Labor Party on this issue, because the Health Services Union has given $1.2 million of its members' money to the Labor Party since 2007, like the CFMEU, which has given $5 million of its union members' money to the Labor Party since 2007. They have fallen a bit more quiet, because they do not like the public to know—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Mr Watts interjecting —

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton and the member for Gellibrand will both remove themselves under 94(a).

The member for Gellibrand then left the chamber.

The member for Moreton will remove himself immediately!

The member for Moreton then left the chamber.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and they certainly do not like workers to know that the Health Services Union and the CFMEU, both of which will be the subject of this royal commission, gave between them over $6 million of their union members' hard-earned money to the Labor Party to keep them in government from 2007 and to dismantle the Australian Building and Construction Commission to ensure that it was defanged and then eventually abolished and replaced with a tiger that was so toothless it was unable to even prosecute if two parties had agreed and settled a matter, in spite of it being criminal or civil activity.

I am not surprised at all that the Labor Party is sensitive about this answer, but it is worse than that, because the Leader of the Opposition continues to stand in the way of the royal commission, the re-establishment of the ABCC and the Registered Organisations Commission, which would address the issues to do with slush funds and corruption in the union movement.

I know that the Leader of the Opposition spent some of the summer in Paris, where he obviously picked up his latest idea to crack down on the unions at workplaces around Australia, because he came back from Paris and said he would attack them with the fashion police. He would make sure they did not wear their colours on worksites if they were bikie members and union members. He got some very good ideas from his trip to Paris, the fashion capital of Europe, because he returned and unveiled this startling policy to strike fear into the hearts of union members. We want to put a tough industrial cop on the beat; he wants to put the fashion police on the beat. He believes that the best way to attack union thuggery is by exposing it in the pages of Vogue magazine. The problem with the Leader of the Opposition is that he will never rise above his background.