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

Before the interruption we were talking about the fit and proper person test that the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill will apply to people who are office-bearers in registered organisations. The member for Gorton and the member for Bendigo talked about how unfair it is that this bill would enable the executive, the government, to take away a union's right to choose who will lead it and take away a union's ability to organise merging. I know that the separation of powers is a difficult concept, and I know that some people opposite don't understand that the government is separate from the Federal Court, but it is the Federal Court that decides whether someone should be disqualified or whether two or more unions should be able to merge. Similarly, it is the Federal Court that should determine whether a union should be deregistered, which is the third aspect of this important bill.

The bill will ensure that the existing power of the Federal Court to deregister an organisation extends to situations where the organisation has repeatedly broken the law, has acted corruptly or has committed serious criminal offences. It is not the government that makes this call. I'm sure that you would know the difference between the government and the Federal Court, but sadly those opposite don't appear to understand that distinction. It is a very important distinction to make, because this is not the executive government saying that we will make those decisions; we are empowering the Federal Court to make that decision where it considers it appropriate.

The existing deregistration provisions in the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act have never been utilised under the current law. The last deregistration of a union was by former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1986, when he had the guts and the intestinal fortitude to deregister the Builders Labourers Federation. The leadership of the Labor Party under Bob Hawke is a far cry from the Labor Party's current leadership under the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition stood up today after question time to say that he'd been misrepresented. He still did not have the willingness to stand up and condemn the atrocious behaviour of CFMEU members telling workers at the mine site that they would rape their children. Not only did he not have the guts to condemn that behaviour but he went and supported them that week.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On I make a point of order: my colleague's misleading the House. The Leader of the Opposition stood up and made a statement at the end of question time in relation to that very point. Perhaps, if the member stayed in the House a little longer instead of scurrying away after question time, he would've heard the explanation.

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

Mr Wallace?

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

I was in the House at the time and I stand by my comment. The Leader of the Opposition did not condemn it. He continues to take money from the CFMEU—$3 million since he was appointed as the leader of the Labor Party.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Reluctant as I am to call a point of order, the member—inadvertently, I think—is suggesting the Leader of the Opposition is somehow personally taking money. I think he is referring to campaign donations that the CFMEU may or may not have made to the Labor Party. I don't know the facts, but I will at least ask him to clarify that.

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

Yes, thank you; I accept that. I did not intend to suggest that he has personally received $3 million, but $3 million has been donated to the Australian Labor Party, under his leadership, since he has become the leader of the ALP. There's absolutely no denying that the ALP is wholly owned, under this Leader of the Opposition, by the CFMEU, when the ALP has received $3 million under his leadership, and received significantly more than that over the last 10 years. This Labor Party owes their political fortunes to the CFMEU, and that is why they continue to refuse to call out this absolutely appalling behaviour. If they won't do it, we have to introduce this bill to enable the Federal Court to call out this atrocious behaviour from time to time. Not all union leaders do it, but those union leaders who commit and will continue to commit criminal offences should be disqualified if the Federal Court considers it to be an appropriate course of action to take. I commend the bill to the House.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 debate. As you no doubt appreciate, Labor will be voting against this bill, because this bill is a continuation of the anti-worker, and anti those who support workers, legislation. Labor will hold this government to account. We will not let the government get away with their savage attacks on workers and those who have the interests of workers as their core business. Trade unions have been a part of this country for many, many years. Trade unions are significant in organising our workplaces. I have even heard Bob Katter, the Independent member for Kennedy, give a dissertation on this in this place. I can't remember what the debate was about, but he said, 'If anyone here thinks that the conditions that we enjoy in the workplace are not a derivative of the actions of the Austrian trade union movement, they have rocks in their head.' There might be very few occasions on which I agree with the member for Kennedy, but on that point I think he is right.

It appears that little has changed since this government have come to power. Bear in mind that they should have learnt under the former Howard government from WorkChoices. WorkChoices is a very interesting piece of legislation which made legal, for the first time in this country, to pay workers below the award rate of pay. They weren't doing that to help workers; they were doing that with the view, 'This will generate more jobs and growth in the economy.' How? It was by paying workers less. That is the role that they took—allowing individual contracts to be made that could reduce workers' take-home pay and reduce workers' ability to demand and ensure proper conditions of work.

I feel somewhat personally affected by this debate. I put it on this basis: I have three children. One is a high school teacher. Then of my two sons one is a carpenter-builder and the other is an electrician. I know the difficulties they can have on their worksites. I know how dangerous it can be in the construction industry. As a matter of fact, my older son, Nicholas, a sparky, returned home from Western Australia one time from a fly-in, fly-out operation after the person he was working with was crushed to death. It is somewhat ironic. I was talking to him only a couple of days ago when he was on another job in New South Wales. He said a formworker fell through the formwork and is currently in a coma. These things are happening now. Through the trade union movement there is an extra set of eyes being focused on workplace conditions and ensuring the safety of workers. I would have thought that was a good thing, not something to be discouraged and not something that this government would put all its energy into trying to thwart the role of the Australian trade union movement.

As I say, I think we could all be somewhat personalising this. I'm not sure those opposite have kids working in the construction industry, but for those of us who have kids working out there we want the best for them. We want to make sure that they go to work and come home safely. Any organisation that can assist in that regard is, I think, a good thing. As I say, I would have thought they would have learnt from the Howard government's experience that, if you attack workers and working conditions, we on this side of the House will certainly arc up. We will stand up for workers every time.

In saying that, we will always support appropriate measures and appropriate regulations that ensure that there aren't criminal acts taking place in workplaces. During question time and during the last speech, we heard allegations made of criminality on a building site. I don't know where those opposite would go if they saw crime, but I personally would go to the police. The government want to set up a new form of regulation such that you can bypass the police and go and do something else. If crimes are being committed, that is what we have our police force for. That is what law enforcement is about. But, no, they don't want to do that. They want to set up this ideological attack on the Australian trade union movement, weakening workers' rights by weakening those organisations that stand up and support them. This is not about regulatory change to get some benefit in the industry; it is purely and simply an issue of ideology.

The bill comes at a time when the government has passed a raft of legislation aimed at undermining working conditions for Australians. You will recall the legislation passed in this very place, not long ago, cutting penalty rates for Sunday work. The government has been able to turn a blind eye to the fact that we now have the lowest wage growth in living memory—record low wage growth compared to gross domestic product. Every credible economist is saying that one of the key aspects of the Australian economy at the moment is the fact that we have record low wage growth. It is hardly surprising when this government does everything to undermine enterprise bargaining and to undermine those who can drive enterprise bargaining, including trade unions. It also comes at a time when we have stubbornly high unemployment and over 1.1 million Australians underemployed—Australians who want more work and can't get it.

This bill is just another example of the government's anti-union, anti-worker agenda. But I have heard them say good things about trade unions in the past. You might recall that the minister used to call Kathy Jackson, who used to be one of the leading lights in the Health Services Union, a hero for the cause. She was 'a lion of the trade union movement'. Well, Kathy Jackson had adverse findings made against her in the trade union royal commission and is now under prosecution by Victoria Police for her role in the trade union movement. Her partner, Mr Michael Lawler, who was a deputy president of the Industrial Relations Commission, showed us on an ABC TV program how to illegally tape phone conversations. He made no bones of the fact that he was taping other judges, and he did this courtesy of an ABC Four Corners report. By the way, Mr Lawler was appointed to the Industrial Relations Commission by none other than the member for Warringah. He was hand-picked. He went there, a conservative barrister put on to do I'm not sure what. He shows us various things in terms of the Health Services Union; but he also comes out and shows us how to illegally record telephone conversations of fellow judges. These are the people that they thought were heroes of the trade union movement, standing up for workers.

Tomorrow the new leadership of the Health Services Union is meeting here in Parliament House. I would invite any of those opposite to come out and talk to them. The organisation is now growing because they have refocused their energies on supporting low-paid workers—the cleaners, the orderlies in hospitals, people working in aged care, people working in palliative care. They're out there doing something constructive. They're supporting low-paid workers and they have an organisation that's growing; but not a peep out of those opposite now. Nothing like what they used to do, talking about Kathy Jackson and extolling the virtues of the way she ran the trade union movement. They haven't said anything about the fact that she's now before the Victorian courts under prosecution by Victoria Police either.

In terms of this legislation, I think the Australian Council of Trade Unions got it right when they said succinctly that the measures in this bill:

… allow excessive political, corporate and regulatory interference in the democratic functioning and control of industrial organisations, with no true objective other than political gain.

I think that's right. The concern was also shared by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which raised serious issues about the bill's compatibility with the International Labour Organization's treaties, particularly the core convention 87, which enshrines freedom of association.

This bill is an overarching attack on trade unions, having no mandate but going beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission—the same royal commission that adversely reported on Kathy Jackson. But that was some 18 months ago, and now this government brings this forward, mainly because it needs to take the spotlight off other inadequacies that it's been confronted with, particularly in relation to power prices in this country. The government claims that the bill will place registered organisations and corporations on the same footing. That sounds good until you go and have a good look at it. It's a false premise. Corporations and unions are not the same. They're not in the same business. They don't operate the same way. It is a completely false premise.

Before I move to schedule 1 of this bill, I will just put in perspective the rights of delegates for a trade union, who are elected to their positions and can be unelected by their very members. But if you are a director of a company, you can take out indemnity insurance to protect you against making adverse decisions that might cause loss to a company. However, if you're on a committee of management of a trade union, that's just not possible. Schedule 1 of this bill expands the basis on which an officer of a registered organisation, in this case a union, may be disqualified. The formulation in the bill has the parochial effect of setting the onus on the defendant to prove why it would be unjust for the court to disqualify a person once a specific ground has been made out. So, if we make an allegation against an officer of a union, it falls on that officer to prove or run the argument—the onus is on him or her—as to why they should not be disqualified. This is certainly different from the current regime in the Corporations Act. If an allegation is made against a company director, the onus of making out the claim is on the person making the allegation. And it certainly goes a lot further than the recommendations set out by the Heydon royal commission.

Furthermore, an application for disqualification of an officer is extended in this bill not only to the Registered Organisations Commissioner but also to the minister or a person with sufficient interest. I just wonder: could a person with sufficient interest be a boss on a particular site who's negotiating with the union and wants to get the upper hand and so makes the allegation against the union official? It may be claimed that that person has sufficient interest to set aside a person—a union official—and have an influence over enterprise bargaining negotiations taking place regarding a particular industry or a particular site. From what I read in schedule 1, it provides no safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. Again, as I said, this goes beyond the recommendations of the trade union royal commission. But certainly in this case I think it is a blatant disregard of convention 87 of the International Labour Organization.

I did want to go on to talk a little about section 2, because it talks about the cancellation of registration of organisations themselves, but I will do that on another day. I think at this stage we should focus on why the government has brought this legislation forward at this stage. What is the purpose of it? The purpose can only be read as to weaken the bargaining strength of the Australian trade union movement.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If this government were serious about ensuring integrity, as it professes to be by bringing forward a bill with this name—the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017—we would have a national independent commission against corruption that would be able to look without fear or favour at wrongdoing by companies, including some of the biggest companies in Australia, by unions, by public servants and by politicians. If the government were serious about it, they would give an organisation that had the confidence of the Australian people the legislation and the power and the resources it needed to go and look behind every closed door and to lift up every rock to see what was lurking there. If the government were prepared to do that, you might have some faith that, when they bring legislation forward that they say is about accountability, they might mean it.

If ever you want to know why we need a national independent commission against corruption that can look without fear or favour, you only need to look at allegations that were made a little while ago but that were aired again today in question time that we had a former minister in this place taking up a job as the head of a lobby group while he was still sitting here drawing a parliamentary salary and then going out and lobbying to defeat one of the government's bills. If that doesn't raise question marks for people in this place, then I don't know what does, because it raises question marks for the public.

When you look at what a corruption commission has done in places like New South Wales, where people on the Labor and Liberal sides of the political fence have been held to account and prosecuted and sentenced where they have done the wrong thing, you can see the effectiveness of it and why people want it. You ask yourself: is it really the case that there's nothing going on at the national level, or is it the case that we just haven't had a watchdog that's been able to come in and find out whether it is going on? So, if the government wants to ensure integrity, come and talk to the Greens about establishing a national independent commission against corruption, a national watchdog, and we'll have that conversation. We have a bill in parliament that we've prosecuted over many years, and so far it's failed to get support from either Labor or Liberal. If there is this great new-found concern about integrity, let's make sure everyone across the board—whether a union or an employer, whether a politician or a judge—is able to be held to account. But, of course, the government is not interested in that. So they bring forward a bill that they call one thing but that is really about doing another thing. You only have to listen to all the speeches from the government and their continued references to the Leader of the Opposition to understand that this is just a nakedly political attack. This is about Liberal beating up on Labor rather than about doing anything to improve democracy in Australia or to improve integrity or accountability.

When you delve into the detail of some of the provisions in this bill, you understand just how scary it is. For example, imagine if, in your workplace, you thought that someone got sacked because they were standing up for people's rights, or maybe you thought they got sacked because they were a woman and you had a discriminatory boss. Let's say everyone in the workplace then decided: 'We're not going to stand for this. We're going outside and we're not coming back in until this issue is resolved.' Those kinds of disputes happen every day in Australia. We've got the Fair Work Commission and the Industrial Relations Commission, which are meant to be charged with resolving those disputes. They might say, 'No, you can't walk out,' or, 'Yes, something's happened that's bad there,' and they are meant to be able to fix it. They don't have the powers they need to have, but let's put that to one side. Under the bill that's being put forward, if you've done that then your union can be deregistered, can be wound up, can be liquidated. If you take industrial action that's not sanctioned under this bill by law—if you stage a walkout because you are worried about someone being sacked or you want to improve conditions at work, and you are back in again the next day when a deal is done—within a very narrow period of time, you expose your union to being deregistered.

This is an attack on people's right to come together and organise in a way that they see fit. We already have bodies that regulate what happens if someone takes so-called unlawful industrial action, bearing in mind that Australia's laws have been criticised many times by the International Labour Organization for putting restrictions on people's right to bargain. It's much, much harder in Australia to exercise your right to bargain than it is in many other countries. But putting that all aside, we already have a body that deals with all of that. And now, under this bill, if you do something like that—bang!—your whole union could be gone. Then the government says, 'No, there are other things in this bill that are important. We want to stop mergers between unions.' Well, why is it this government's job—why is it any government's job—to say that people aren't allowed to organise and choose what union they want to represent them? If they want their union to merge with another union—perhaps because their industry is changing, there is technological change, or they understand it is better to work together—why on earth shouldn't they be allowed to do it? Again, when you look into the provisions in this bill, you understand why.

What the government is saying is, 'Actually, one of the things that has to be taken into account now is what the employer wants—what the employers in the industry want and whether or not it's going to be good for them.' If you just think about that for a moment, that's the equivalent of a company being able to say, 'No, I don't want my workers to be able to join the union they want because then they might come and ask for a pay rise and it will affect my economic interests.' Well, under this legislation, affecting the economic interests of your employer by asking for a pay rise becomes a reason to say that two unions can't join together if they want to. This is not at all about doing anything to do with integrity; it's about increasing the imbalance of power that currently exists and making it even harder for people to stand up for their rights at work.

Imagine if you had two environment groups in this country saying, 'Well, we actually think we're going to be better able to tackle pollution if we join up together and work together.' It's the equivalent of saying, 'No, you can't go and do it unless you ask a coal company first.' That's what this law is saying. This law is saying that in civil society in Australia groups can't work together and join together unless the people on the other side of the fence approve it first. That is astounding. Imagine if it was the other way around. Imagine if two companies couldn't merge, or one company couldn't sell themselves to the other company without the union agreeing. Imagine if that was the case. The government would have kittens! The government would tell us it's the worst thing they've ever seen. But they're prepared to do it the other way around because it's not about evenhandedness and integrity; it's about tipping the playing field in favour of one side over the other.

Then the government comes along and says that this is partly about putting unions on the same footing as corporations. I tell you what: when it comes to the day that every corporation has to publish its full accounts on websites, including private corporations, when it comes to the day that people are able to front up and say, 'I want to join that particular corporation and have a vote as to who the managing director should be,' maybe the government might have something going for it. But the government isn't interested in giving people more control over corporations and democratising corporations. No; it's about putting further red tape on people who choose to come together and form unions. There's no public interest or fit-and-proper-person test existing for corporations in the same way as proposed in this bill; it's much, much harsher.

Unfortunately, this probably isn't going to be the last of these bills that the government will drag up, because the government is behind in the polls and has been consistently for some time. It's no surprise, when they preside over a rise in pollution, when they're happy to preside over an economy where wages growth is stagnating and, in some instances, going backwards and when they double wholesale power prices by making sure that no-one understands what the heck is going on in the energy system, they're on the nose. It's no wonder they're on the nose, and what do you do when you're on the nose? You do the favourite thing that conservatives always do, which is to find people to beat up. They've done their best to try to beat up refugees, and they'll continue to do that. They are still saying they want to beat up on people who can't speak English and change the citizenship test. They are on a hiding to nothing with that. What else do they do? We will beat up on unions and beat up on people who are trying to organise at work.

I expect we will probably see a bill like this every week from now until the election, because the government's got nothing better to talk about. At the same time as the Reserve Bank governor says, 'We have a problem, which is that wages aren't growing fast enough in this country,' and at the same time that we hear about how much power bills are going up because the government doesn't have the guts to step in and re-regulate power prices, they are wanting to make it harder for people to organise to exercise their rights at work. If this bill passes, aside from the assault on democracy that it is, it is not going to lift wages; it is going to decrease wages because people will have less bargaining power. They will have less rights at work to negotiate for higher pay or for better wages and conditions, and it will lead to people feeling more insecure.

At the moment, we have a massive problem with rising job insecurity in this country, as well as the declining wages, and people are worried that we are at a tipping point where we are going to leave the country worse off for the next generation than the country that we inherited. For the first time in a very, very long time, we run the risk of leaving the country worse off for young people who are following us than when we inherited it. What is the government's response? It is not to come in and say, 'Let's invest more in education, let's build renewable energy and let's find ways of bringing people together so we can cooperate to make our country better.' No. It is just to pull out the conservative playbook and beat up on refugees, beat up on welfare recipients and now beat up on unions as well.

The Greens won't be having a bar of it. This is a very, very bad bill that is just out-and-out politically motivated. And the government speakers in favour of this bill don't even pretend that it's to do with anything other than beating up on the Leader of the Opposition. You would have thought they might have their speaking notes in order and talk hand on heart about how we need reform in the area. Instead, they all get up one after the other and say it is all about so-and-so getting campaign donations. If you want to fix that, let's reform campaign laws. Right? Let's reform campaign donations. Do you have an appetite for that, government? Do you have an appetite for a national ICAC? Do you have an appetite for getting the money out of politics, full stop? No. Absolutely not. Of course not, because that is not the motivation. They probably would have done better to have gotten their speaking notes in line before they got up on their tirades. But they have. They have belled the cat and made clear that this is all about politics and nothing to do with transparency or integrity. For that reason, this bill should be opposed.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday, I had the pleasure, if that is the way to describe it, to stand outside the HMAS Albatross base on the outskirts of Nowra to draw the public's attention to the fact that under the Liberal-National Party, 70 jobs were set to be stripped from that naval base in regional Australia—70 well-paid permanent jobs in a town which struggles with unemployment. In some categories and in some suburbs it is double the national average. At a time when the Liberal and National parties have been running around the country talking about the importance of decentralising jobs out of Canberra, you saw an example where the same government and the same parties are removing jobs from regional Australia and sending them back to Canberra.

Of course, the member for Gilmore denied this was occurring, but we have very credible evidence that these jobs are indeed slated for removal from Nowra, and that there could be more jobs in the firing line from that base. This comes after figures released by the Australian Public Service Commission revealed that since 2014 over 890 ongoing jobs have been ripped out of regional Australia. That includes 760 roles in New South Wales, 180 roles in Queensland and 320 roles in regional Western Australia. You'd think that against this background the priority for any member representing a regional town and a regional electorate would be to come into this place, or go into their party room, and advocate for laws and policies which attract jobs to regional Australia and protect jobs in regional Australia.

Of course, the people who do that are so often not the political representatives of those constituencies but the people who represent those workers in those workplaces. They are the unions. In this case it was not the local member who assisted in this information coming to light about jobs being slashed in regional Australia but the union representing those workers. I am of course talking about the CPSU, a very good union representing government and public sector workers, often workers who sit in the advisers' box over there. If anybody needs a collective organisation representing their work and their job security, it is workers who work for the government, because they have nowhere else to go.

Strong unions are what we do about job cuts in regional Australia. And the single purpose of the legislation before the House today is to reduce the power and influence of unions and their capacity to organise and to protect the jobs and conditions of their members. In question time today we saw the peripatetic puppies on the other side frothing at the mouth, as they often do, when the subject of industrial relations comes up. They were citing examples which, if they were true—and we have no way of knowing whether they are true—would be condemned by every member of this place, regardless of their political stripe. We do not condemn the behaviour and the existence of every corporation and every director in this country because of the atrocious behaviour of a company like James Hardie, which acted atrociously and unconscionably and did things that no decent director would approve of and no company could conscionably do. It would be wrong of us to judge the behaviour of every company and every director in the country by the behaviour of that one company, or companies like it. Neither should we judge the behaviour of every decent unionist, every decent workplace representative, by behaviours that every normal, right-thinking person would condemn. Strong unions are what we do about regional job cuts, because strong unions fight for the existence and the conditions of the jobs in those regions. We need more of them, not less of them. If we're going to save the jobs of those 70 workers in Nowra and of many, many more workers that are also under threat, we'll need a strong union in the workplace advocating for their rights. The CPSU does a very good job, I know, of advocating for the rights of workers in regional areas, and we'll need that right around the country.

I want to talk about inequality, because we've had some more evidence confirming that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing in this country. In my own electorate, median total household income is around $1,300 a week. The rate of unemployment in regions like mine is much higher than it is in Malcolm Turnbull's electorate and much higher than the national average. Having a job in the Illawarra region is more than twice as difficult as it is in Malcolm Turnbull's electorate. So, when we see legislation like the bill we have before the House today, we cannot but draw the conclusion that the people conceiving of this legislation and the people voting for this legislation simply do not get what life is like for the rest of Australia. Those people are finding it more than two times harder to find a job in regional Australia than they would if they were searching for the same job in Malcolm Turnbull's own electorate or many of these other inner-city electorates that don't know how hard it is to struggle to find work. They understand that legislation like this is not legislation conceived of or drafted in their interest.