Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister outline to the House any examples of union activities which would be eradicated through the introduction of vital reforms banning secret payments between big unions and big business?

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

I thank the member for Corangamite for her question. Members might remember that yesterday I was talking about the corrupting benefits legislation the government has introduced today, and I was outlining some of the payments that significant companies had made in Victoria to the AWU over the period 2004 to 2007—very significant payments over many years on many occasions: Visy, for example, paid almost $200,000; IUS Holdings, over $560,000; Alcoa, almost $90,000; Sugar Australia, around $16,500; and Austral Bricks almost $14,500. The question I asked myself was: why would these corporations make such significant payments to the AWU when the Leader of the Opposition was either the national secretary or the state secretary? What could they possibly have been getting in return? It is very unusual for businesses to simply give money to unions—they might give money to charities and not expect very much in return, but to unions, it seems very unusual. On digging a bit more, I discovered that when these payments were being made by Visy Industries, for example, to the AWU, the current Leader of the Opposition was negotiating six enterprise business agreements with Visy at the time. And when the payment by IUS Holdings, which was $560,000, was being made to the AWU, IUS was the compulsory income protection insurance provider specified in at least one of those deals signed by Leader of the Opposition with Visy.

Perhaps it is the case that this was a complete coincidence, but, on digging further, one of the more egregious examples was of Austral Bricks, which gave the AWU almost $14,500 at the time. They had never made a payment until one week after the EBA was signed by the Leader of the Opposition with Austral Bricks. So, just one week after that EBA was signed by the Leader of the Opposition, Austral Bricks started making these payments. Obviously, it is a coincidence. Clearly, it is a complete coincidence! As a generous man who always believes in the good of people, I assumed all three of these were coincidences. But then I looked further, at Alcoa, and he was negotiating five enterprise agreements with Alcoa while these payments were being made. And there is even more—there is more to come. It goes on and on and on—one company after another. That is why these corrupting benefits must be stopped by this legislation—to clean up the unions and stop them shaking down business.