Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain to the House how forcing the rule of law on construction sites through the reintroduction of the ABCC will benefit the hardworking Australians I represent in the agricultural industry?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Page for his question. He is a person who understands the benefit to the Australian working man and woman from the production of food and from the delivery and processing of food. We note—in areas such as macadamia production that he has in his electorate—the great jobs that are produced not only by the farmers but also by the people who are processing the macadamias. That is also the case in the Casino cooperative meatworks. I commend the work he has been doing with cooperatives—those meatworks employing working men and women and making sure that they have the capacity to go home with a fair day's pay after a fair day's work.

But, unfortunately, from time to time we have an impediment in trying to bring forth these jobs that are so essential to the Australian economy. We note, for instance, the $280-or-so million that was put aside to build the Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable markets. Unfortunately, when they went to build it, there was a bit of fight. You would think it would be about the farmers wanting it bigger. No, it was between the member for Griffith's crowd, the CFMEU, and the member for Maribyrnong crowd, the AWU. They went to fight and just kept fighting and fighting and fighting, until in the end the ABCC took them to the Federal Court and ordered that they remove the blockades, which were costing millions of dollars, and that they get back to work.

So what do they do when the court of the land says to go back to work? You would think they would obey that order. No, they did not. The CFMEU was obviously above the law. They do not have to comply with the law. That is for the regular men and women of Australia, not the CFMEU. They can just make their own arrangements. We saw it again with the desal plant, where the CFMEU went on strike, costing $5 million a day.

The issue for the member for Page and for everybody here is that we must believe in the rule of law. We cannot have mum-and-dad operators going onto worksites, being bullied by thugs who stand over them, thugs whose belief is not in a fair day's work and a fair day's pay, but just in extorting money and extorting ridiculous conditions out of it.

The Labor Party would be the champion of the CFMEU, with the member for Griffiths involved in the CFMEU, the member for Shortland involved in the CFMEU, and the member for Calwell involved in the CFMEU. These are part of the process, and they are paying their dues here at the moment. They are paying their dues to make sure that they deliver back to the CFMEU, who has also delivered millions of dollars to the Australian Labor Party. The problem with the Labor Party these days is there are not many labourers in it. There are an awful lot of union officials but not many labourers. But we will make sure that we give our very best endeavours to get the cop back on the beat.