Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Minister for Employment. Will the minister update the House on how the government is acting to ensure fair and equitable conditions for workers in our workplaces? What obstacles exist to achieving this outcome?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who's looking after the cleaners?

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

I heard the deputy leader of the Labor Party calling out, 'Who's looking after the cleaners?' That is actually a very apposite interjection, given the events we have seen in the royal commission around Clean Event, whose workers were sold down the river by the Australian Workers Union in exchange for $75,000. The AWU signed off an EBA with Clean Event that saved Clean Event $6 million, and the allegation in the royal commission is that the $75,000 was used for purposes to help elect Labor candidates for paying membership fees and other activities. So, the deputy leader makes a very important interjection, and that is why we in the government have tried to introduce the Registered Organisations Commission. It is why we are trying to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission—because we want to root out dodgy union officials and support honest union officials and look after the workers.

Not only has this allegation been aired this week, but I was shocked to read in the newspaper this morning, in the Herald Sun, that the Australian Workers Union, led by Cesar Melhem and the state secretary at the time, who was Mr Shorten—state secretary in 2005—signed up the entire membership of the Australian Netball Players' Association, and then sent them an invoice for $9,000, without their knowledge, to boost their membership numbers so that they would get more votes inside the ALP for preselections and at the state council. You can just imagine the poor old netball mums turning up on Saturday morning to play, expecting to get their goal shooter bib or their goal defence bib and instead getting a high-vis vest and a hard hat as their uniform to play netball in. It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous, and the Leader of the Opposition needs to explain what he knew about these matters and when, because the Herald Sun reports:

Mr Shorten announced the union's deal with the ANPA in 2005, when he was the AWU Victorian secretary.

He can prove his bona fides, he can support the Registered Organisations Commission, he can support he ABCC and he can explain what he knew and when about netballgate.