Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The CFMEU is the gift that keeps on giving. Today in The Australian we see that yesterday the courts handed down unprecedented penalties for the CFMEU's concerted campaign of industrial lawlessness at the Barangaroo building site in Sydney. There were up to 1,000 workers who were involved in that illegal strike. When we talk about illegal strikes, people in this place quite often don't understand. They say: 'So what? What's an illegal strike? People should have the ability to withhold their labour.' But what people in this place don't understand are the impacts that that can cause on any building site. Most people in this place have never worked on a building site in their life. Most of them, probably, have never walked onto a building site in their life. What they don't understand are the impacts that it causes for small and medium-sized enterprises that are contracting on that building site.

When a building site gets shut down, everything gets shut down—the crane gets shut down and there are concrete supplies that are literally out the front. Concrete goes off in the agitators in trucks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions of dollars, when a building site gets shut down just for one day. The people who are working on that building site—the small mum-and-dad businesses—don't get paid. When those people get their building sites shut down, they lose money. When they lose their money, they can't put their kids in school and can't put food on the table. People in this place don't understand that that's what happens when a building site gets shut down illegally. The people who did want to work on that building site at Barangaroo were called 'scum' and 'dogs' by union organisers such as Luke Collier. In fact, he told one building inspector that he was lower than a paedophile.

The CFMEU New South Wales branch and multiple CFMEU officials have been ordered by the Federal Court to pay penalties in excess of $2.4 million. The orders included that the CFMEU national body pay a fine of $1.326 million. CFMEU New South Wales was ordered to pay $956,000. Brian Parker was ordered to pay $45,400, Robert Kera was ordered to pay $41,000, Danny Reeves was ordered to pay $41,000, and Luke Collier was ordered to pay $40,000. In addition to issuing unprecedented penalties, Justice Flick also referred union officials Brian Parker, Luke Collier, Robert Kera and Tony Sloane to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible criminal prosecution for allegedly giving false testimony during the proceedings. Justice Flick said:

It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage any worse conduct than that pursued by the CFMEU. The CFMEU assumes a prominent role in the industrial affairs of this country and has consistently exhibited a contempt for compliance with the law.

He goes on:

… the CFMEU has long demonstrated by its conduct that it pays but little regard to compliance with the law and indeed has repeatedly sought to place itself above the law.

He also says:

The CFMEU's conduct exposes a cavalier disregard for the prior penalties imposed by this Court.

These latest penalties of $2.4 million pale into insignificance compared to what the courts have imposed since 2004. In fact, since 2004 the courts have imposed penalties of $10,096,300 for the CFMEU's breaches of industrial laws. The CFMEU were the first ever union to have more than $10 million worth of fines imposed upon them. They have engaged in unlawful industrial action affecting well over $1 billion worth of public infrastructure projects, including the Queensland children's hospital and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. That is just in Queensland—it's happening all over the country. I ask all those hardworking building industry members of the CFMEU to not let your membership fees go to this organisation—it is money out of your pocket and they are tearing it up in fines.