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 why it is important that the leaders of unions and employer organisations always act in the best interests of their members? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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. Of course, it is very important that members of unions be able to have confidence that their union is being operated in their interests and not in the interests of union leaders or, for that matter, corrupt employers and businesses.

Now, members remember that last Thursday, I outlined the fact that IUS Holdings, an income protection company, paid $566,000 to the Australian Workers' Union during the time that the Leader of the Opposition was the secretary of that union, between 2004 and 2007. In return for those payments—we have no idea what the payments to the union were for—they became the preferred provider of income protection for 28 enterprise business agreements that the AWU was negotiating with employers at that time. So $566,000 of unexplained payments flowed to the AWU from IUS Holdings, and the union negotiated 28 EBAs with businesses that made IUS Holdings their preferred income protection business.

Since I raised that point here last Thursday, the Leader of the Opposition has had three set piece press conferences and has not explained to the press conference what these payments were for. Usually, he comes into the House and makes a personal explanation and explains why these payments—or whatever they might be—are of no consequence.

But that isn't the only payment that the workers of the AWU didn't know anything about during that period from 2004 to 2007. Unfortunately, while the Leader of the Opposition was the head of the AWU a company called Incolink gave $165,000 of unexplained payments to the AWU. As well as that, there were $90,000 in brokerage fees and $150,000 for an opaquely-named business called Incolink Project, yet to be explained. None of this was explained or exposed to the workers of the AWU. Coincidentally, the Victorian AWU negotiated 41 EBAs with those businesses during that time payments were being made when, amazingly, Incolink was the preferred worker entitlement fund for every one of those EBAs.

The Leader of the Opposition needs to explain why those payments were being made, what the payments were for and what Incolink got for them. He needs to explain that and what happened with IUS Holdings before it's too late.