Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister inform the House of recent court decisions relating to violence and intimidation in Australian workplaces. Are there any obstacles getting in the way of stamping out this thuggery?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Member for Moore for his question. It is a very important issue, because last week the Federal Court handed down yet another decision finding against the CFMEU and its officials, this time over the violent picket that the CFMEU staged at the Grocon building site in Melbourne in 2012. Once again, the Federal Court found that the CFMEU engaged in deliberate unlawful behaviour. But once again, the Leader of the Opposition remains totally silent on the subject. I think it is legitimate to ask why that would be the case.

One of the CFMEU officials the court found against, who was responsible for the violence at Grocon, was a Mr Craig Johnston, who has had cause to be mentioned in this House before, when the Prime Minister was the Minister for Workplace Relations. Mr Johnson has form in terms of these kinds of incidents. In 1996 he led the Parliament House riot at this place. In 2001 he was sentenced to nine months jail for trying to enforce his union's right of entry to a Melbourne office with a crowbar. The court took a dim view of trying to enforce the right of entry with a crowbar, and he paid by spending nine months in jail in Melbourne. After that violent incident, though, a most unusual thing happened. Mr Johnston's union friends approached Premier Steve Bracks and Greg Combet, who was then the Secretary of the ACTU, and they asked what could be done to help Mr Johnston with the difficulties in which he found himself.

One of those union leaders, unfortunately, sits in this House. One of those leaders who approached Steve Bracks and Greg Combet and asked what help could be given to Craig Johnson to make sure that those charges did not go ahead was the Leader of the Opposition, unfortunately, when he was the secretary of the union in Victoria. There was photographic evidence, because he also, in order to support his friend Craig Johnston, stormed a meeting that Kim Beazley was speaking at, and was photographed with the offender Craig Johnston. He had quite a lot of hair in those days!

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

We do not use props. The Minister will put the prop down. The Leader of the House will put the prop down. The Minister has the call, but not for the prop.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly; that would be quite inappropriate! But I am happy to table the photograph of the then secretary of the union with Craig Johnston and Kim Beazley. But it does lead to a very important point. The Leader of the Opposition could deal with this cloud hanging over his head in terms of his lack of voice on the issue of thuggery in workplaces by supporting the government's Australian Building and Construction Commission being re-established with the Registered Organisations Commission. I call on him to do so.