House debates

Monday, 16 October 2017

Bills

Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017; Second Reading

12:23 pm

Photo of Brendan O'ConnorBrendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to:

(1) abandon its support of the decision of the Fair Work Commission to cut penalty rates because it will mean nearly 700,000 Australians will have their take home pay cut by up to $77 a week; and

(2) legislate to prevent the decision from taking effect to stop Australians from having their penalty rates cut".

I rise to make a contribution to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. Labor will not stand for corruption or for poor or dishonest behaviour in any form. As I have said before, we will support legislation that's properly drafted and, if appropriate, that applies equally to companies and registered organisations. We have carefully considered this bill and, as might be predicted for a bill from this government attacking unions, it just doesn't stack up. It's poorly drafted and it is a blatant attack on working Australians. For these reasons, Labor opposes this bill.

As is custom, I received a briefing on the bill from the Department of Employment. First, I would like to thank those public servants who met with me, with the assistants from the minister's office. However, I was concerned about what I heard at that briefing. Indeed, I asked about consultation in relation to this bill and was told that there was consultation. Indeed the consultation, I was advised, occurred on 14 August. The bill was introduced on 16 August. From that moment, I was aware that this was nothing more than a rushed piece of legislation to score political points against the Labor movement and the opposition and to attack the union movement in this country. There was no genuine consultation. The department advised me that the states and other stakeholders were notified that a bill was being introduced. There was no genuine engagement with anyone affected before this bill was introduced into this place. This shows that this bill is nothing more than a political tool. The government needed a distraction, so it introduced this bill without adequate, if any, consultation and without getting the basics right.

The bill divides into five schedules 15 minor and technical amendments. The second reading speech and the public statements from the minister say that this bill will bring registered organisations and officials in line with corporations and company directors. At the outset, it is important to note that unions are not corporations; they are very different things. Corporations are vehicles by which business is conducted. In the vast majority of cases, corporations are for profit, operating in a commercial world with their own financial interests at the core of what they do. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, provided that a company pays its tax, treats its workers with dignity and respect, pays wages lawfully and ensures its creditors are paid on time.

Unions, on the other hand, are membership based organisations. They have at their core a set of values that goes far beyond financial gain. They represent workers who, without the collective support of fellow union members, cannot represent themselves effectively. Union officers are democratically elected, unlike company directors. The function of trade unions and the right of individuals to join one is enshrined in international law. Article 23.4 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out the underlying principles for international law in respect of fundamental rights in the work place and states that:

Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

With that being said, even on the false premise that corporations and registered organisations should be treated in the same manner, this bill does not achieve this goal. Even a cursory reading of the bill emphatically disproves this myth that is being flogged by the government.

The truth is that this bill imposes obligations on registered organisations and officers significantly in excess of those imposed on corporation and company directors. It defies belief that the government can suggest they are bringing people on an even footing when they are clearly engaging in nothing more than the most blatant of union bashing. The disqualification regime for officers is not equivalent to that which applies to company directors. The disqualification regime recommended by the Heydon report would have provided standing to bring an application for a disqualifying order to the registered organisation's regulator. This is consistent with equivalent provisions of the Corporations Act. However, in this bill, an application can be brought by the commissioner, the minister or a person with sufficient interest. There are no conditions on the standing or bringing of an application that could operate as safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. I'd like to think that this is a drafting error, however serious on the government's part, but I fear it is anything but.

So who would come under the phrase 'person with sufficient interest'? It may well be that employers might be able to take this matter up against unions. It may well be a member of a union. It may well be a former member of a union. It may well be other persons yet defined. The fact is that the breadth of the persons who are able to bring this application goes well beyond what could occur to corporations in this country. It goes well in excess of the recommendations of the Dyson Heydon royal commission and underlines the enmity towards unions that this government has. For that reason it should be opposed.

The bill's imposition of the fit-and-proper-person test, in particular, which allows the court to take into account any event the court considers relevant, means that the grounds for disqualification are potentially broader in respect of officers of registered organisations than they are in respect of company directors. Under the bill the court may disqualify a person from holding office for the period it considers appropriate if one of the grounds is made out and the court does not consider that it would be unjust to disqualify the person. This formulation is different from the Corporations Act regime, which empowers a disqualification order if a ground is made out and the order is justified. The formulation in the bill has the practical effect of effectively shifting the onus onto the respondent to satisfy the court why the order is unjust if a ground is made out.

The bill introduces new grounds for cancellation of registration relating to conduct of officers, which are based on conduct grounds contained in the Corporations Act but go beyond the legislation. Only the grounds in new sections 28C(1)(d) and 28C(1)(e) appear to be equivalent. The grounds in new sections 28C(1)(a) to 28C(1)(c) impose on officers of organisations, which may include workers holding a voluntary position in the governance structure of a union, standards of conduct not imposed on company directors.

It's important to note a few things about the grounds relating to corrupt conduct of officers. First, at least in relation to the recommendation to introduce legislation about corrupting benefits, the Heydon report cautioned to avoid using the word 'corruptly' in the elements of the offence and to state expressly what fault element is required to establish the offence. Corrupt conduct of officers is given extremely broad scope in section 28C of the bill. Many of the acts or omissions that could constitute corrupt conduct of officers in the bill fall short of the standard that may otherwise lead to a finding of corruption under criminal law. Further, a finding of fact, not necessarily a finding of guilt in proceedings in any court, is prima facie evidence of corrupt conduct under this bill. It would appear there is one law for unions and another law for companies.

It is also important to consider this provision, and the potential for a registered organisation to have its registration cancelled on the basis of conduct of individual officers, against recent examples in the corporate world, where no such penalty exists. There are no provisions in the Corporations Act that allow for companies to be wound up due to a history of noncompliance with the law from members, be they directors or shareholders in the case of companies. Therefore, a company can repeatedly put workers' lives at risk or refuse to pay employees proper wages or entitlements and not be wound up, whereas a union could have its registration cancelled if a group of members takes unprotected industrial action. For example, under the proposed legislation, the journalist members of the MEAA could have the registration of their union cancelled or have their right to take protected industrial action suspended based on the conduct of their democratically elected officials, that conduct occurring without their knowledge. On the other hand, executives and directors of the Commonwealth Bank have been accused of failing to take steps to prevent the bank from breaching anti-money-laundering regulations on more than 50,000 occasions. This comes on the back of the CommInsure scandal. Yet the coalition government does not seem to view this anywhere near as seriously as the conduct of a union or its officers. Apparently, unions require a royal commission, yet hardly a week goes by without some crisis hitting the banking sector, and the government still won't join Labor in supporting a royal commission to investigate and address systemic issues in that sector.

What is remarkable is that, because of the conduct of a number of union officials, it is possible to increase the likelihood of the deregistration of an organisation, which will undermine the capacity of workers who are covered by the union to be properly represented. Yet, in the case of the corporate sector there is no similar capacity. Of course one should have regard to the impact on people who hold accounts in banks, and Labor is not suggesting that we should be able to wind up a company because of the conduct of an executive officer or directors of the company without having very serious regard to the effect on people who hold accounts with these companies, in this case the banks. But there is no proper consideration of what will happen to members who have had no control over the conduct of an officer of a registered organisation, and they could be exposed as a result of that organisation being deregistered.

In respect of schedule 4 and the amalgamation of registered organisations, the government claims that the competition test applied to companies seeking to merge is similar to the public interest test that the bill imposes on organisations seeking to amalgamate. This is demonstrably not the case. The current provision of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 that provides a simple procedural process for amalgamations to give effect to the wishes of the respective organisations' members as expressed in a ballot conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission is entirely appropriate. The competition test imposed on company mergers only takes into account whether the merger would have the effect of substantially lessening competition in any market. The public interest test that the bill imposes on organisations takes into account the organisations' record of complying with the law as well as the impact on employers and employees in the industry or industries concerned. The latter is far broader than the competition test. The former has no equivalent. Corporations can have an extensive record of not complying with the law, including wage theft, and not be prevented from merging.

Like corporations, unions may wish to amalgamate to access benefits of consolidation—economies of scale such as reducing rent and utilities payments, increasing administrative efficiencies and responding to new work processes—and to address the potential erosion of boundaries between traditional industries. They should not be denied the right to do so by Liberal-National governments or employers who despise union coverage in their industries. When the question of a company merger is raised, those companies are not required to consider the interests of employees. Perhaps they should. If you want to apply the same principle to registered organisations as companies, perhaps they should consider the interests of their employees? If they did we would see fewer situations like Japan Post taking over Toll Holdings. It has been reported in The Australian:

Toll Holdings is moving quickly to implement the findings of an urgent 100-day strategy review by its new management team that will reduce its operational business units and slash 1700 jobs, most in Australia.

This parliament could ask these questions: why doesn't the coalition require the merger of employer associations to consider the interests of employees in that industry, and why can't unions apply to block a merger between corporations? Of course, those questions are rhetorical. The answer is simply that tests proposed by this bill evidence the government's anti-worker ideological agenda—nothing more and nothing less.

Let me be clear—the government has no mandate for the bill it has introduced. Instead, not for the first time, we need to question the motivation of the government. This bill is apparently based on certain recommendations of the discredited Heydon royal commission—although this is, of course, wrong in many respects. In fact, in evidence provided to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee on 28 September by Mr Stephen Smith, head of the National Workplace Relations Policy at the Australian Industry Group, and by the Department of Employment, it was agreed that the proposals in this bill go well beyond those recommended by Dyson Heydon. Despite this, there is no regulatory impact statement in relation to the bill. What the government claims instead is that the interim and final reports of the royal commission have been certified by the Department of Employment as being informed by a process and analysis equivalent to a regulatory impact statement. This is the very same department which accepts that the bill goes beyond the recommendations of the royal commission. Further still, the Heydon recommendations were made almost two years ago. However, this lazy and incompetent government took no action to respond to any of those recommendations, not before the double-dissolution election, not after it and not even when this parliament was debating the two antiworker pieces of legislation that were the Prime Minister's justification for taking the nation to the polls. You might remember during the election campaign that the two bills that were supposed to be the trigger for the election were mentioned twice in eight weeks by the Prime Minister, which pretty much sums up the ostensible nature of the election and the fact that this government has never seriously taken up this matter other than to do everything it can to undermine organised labour in this country.

This government did nothing in response to the Heydon recommendations until it realised that it was on the wrong side entirely when it came to cutting penalty rates. Then we saw the so-called corrupting benefits legislation, which was so rushed and so badly drafted that it had to be significantly amended in the Senate by Labor amendments. Again, there is a pattern here with this government. With respect to that legislation, which is in some ways related to this legislation because it is another part of the relentless assault on organised labour and unions in this country, there was an attempt to bring in a set of arrangements in order to place a greater burden upon union officials than would apply to public officials. In fact, the construction of the offences in that piece of legislation were far more burdensome and therefore relatively unfair on union officials than that which would apply to public officials, raising, if you like, the threshold in a way that just constantly exposes the hostility and enmity that the Turnbull government has towards unions in this country.

We have a conservative government reverting to form. We have a government racked by internal division, on the nose with the electorate, losing ground from the centre and losing ground to the extreme Right, both within the coalition party room and outside of it. When they are struggling and want to pretend they have an agenda of any kind, they bring out this antiworker and ideologically inspired union-bashing agenda. We have seen it before and we'll see it again. It would appear that the only thing, the only area of public policy, that unites this government is its enmity towards unions and its hatred of penalty rates. What we have in reality is a conservative government that is not at all in tune with the electorate. A Choice consumer survey conducted in June indicated that, of the cost-of-living pressures, health, electricity and groceries were the top three issues worrying Australians. At the same time, the left-wing think tanks, those economists at Citigroup, suggested that actual consumer conditions have moved into negative territory, despite a surge in corporate profits. They suggested that the divergence can be explained by the decline in wages growth as a share of national income to its equal lowest ever recorded. Recent ABS figures show that wages increased by 0.5 per cent in the June quarter to 1.9 per cent over the year. It is the lowest annual wages growth on record since the ABS first published data in 1997. Nominal wages growth for the June quarter was worse than the previous quarter in which wages increased by 0.6 per cent to 1.9 per cent over the year to March. In the June quarter 2017, private sector wages growth remains at record lows.

While consumer surveys show that concerns about cost-of-living expenses are at the front of public consciousness, as well as concerns about record low wages growth and fears about job security, the focus of the government is on attacking the trade union movement and the workers it represents. The idea that we would be focusing on these areas of public policy, when wages are falling and flatlining and people are worried about getting enough work, when we have a record 1.1 million Australians looking for more work and not being able to find it, when we have youth unemployment between 12 per cent and 13 per cent—there is so much to be done here to make things easier for those who are struggling to pay the bills, yet the obsession of the government is to undermine the trade union movement at every turn. The Labor Party is intent on bringing employers and unions around the table. That's one thing you won't see from this government. You won't see them bring together people representing business and workers around the table to talk about the structural challenges of this nation, because they are so obsessed with trying to destroy organised labour.

The amendments proposed by the bill unduly interfere with the free and democratic functioning of organisations, with no true objective other than political gain. This government should stop trying to interfere in industrial organisations and should realise that, if they were serious about improving the trade union movement, they should be doing everything they can to address and increase member participation rather than introducing draconian laws. The minister will say that unions do not respect the rule of law. She will say that the only way to pull lawless unions into line is to support the measures outlined in the bill. All the while, the minister knew of her own regulator's breaches of the Fair Work Act for almost a year, and yet he remained appointed as head of the ABCC. It was quite remarkable, having listened to the lectures from the Minister for Employment in relation to regulating the building industry, to find that the regulator had knowingly given the wrong advice to employers in the building industry and that the government had done nothing about it. Indeed, the government then allowed him to continue to be employed so that $400,000 of taxpayers' money would be spent on the legal defence of Mr Hadgkiss.

Photo of Andrew WallaceAndrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Big difference: Hadgkiss resigned.

Photo of Brendan O'ConnorBrendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | | Hansard source

I'm hearing interjections from those opposite. I assume that the member who's intervening supports the fact that Mr Hadgkiss will be given $400,000 to pay for his legal costs when he knowingly broke the law. Mr Hadgkiss knowingly broke the law. The minister was aware of the fact that he broke the law, left him in that position for a year and, once it was reported and disclosed, left him in that position for an extra two weeks to indemnify him against the costs of legal expenses so that the taxpayer has to foot the bill of $400,000, which would not have had to be paid if he'd accepted the fact that he knowingly misrepresented the law and intentionally did so to mislead employers and unions in the building industry. We hardly need any lectures from the government about the law when they have a regulator intentionally giving misleading advice on the law.

As I said, there will be more questions for the minister to answer. We haven't finished with that matter, I can assure you. But let me just say this finally—and this isn't left until last because it's the least important but perhaps because it's a crucial point to finish on. There's a real potential that this bill contravenes international law in that it contravenes ILO core convention 87: Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948. Even the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has raised serious questions in this regard and has requested further information from the minister regarding the compatibility of aspects of each of schedules 1 to 4 of the bill. We ratified that convention. Every Labor and conservative government has upheld that convention. That ILO convention provides that, article 3:

      And article 4:

      Workers' and employers' organisations shall not be liable to be dissolved or suspended by administrative authority.

      Article 7 says:

      The acquisition of legal personality by workers' and employers' organisations, federations and confederations shall not be made subject to conditions of such a character as to restrict the application of the provisions of Articles 2, 3 and 4 hereof.

      Significant concerns in this regard have been raised by the Parliamentary Join Committee on Human Rights in its Human rights scrutiny report, No. 9 of 2017. No responses to those concerns have yet been published, and the committee has not yet published a concluded finding. No-one should think for a moment that the government cares for this convention or its breach, but it is an important matter that should be placed on the record.

      It is for these reasons that we oppose this bill. This bill is in its breadth and depth quite remarkable in terms of its attempts to undermine the ability for registered organisations and unions to conduct their business in this country. I have seen previous conservative governments, certainly with the introduction of Work Choices, take on conditions of employment in a pretty savage way. With the introduction of Work Choices we saw that writ large, but I'd have to say the combination of proposed laws by this government—the Turnbull government—is, in terms of the extent and nature of proposed legislation to undermine the capacity for working people to organise and be represented effectively in work places, probably the most I have ever seen. I don't think there is any equivalent to the scale of this.

      As I have said very clearly, this legislation goes well beyond the recommendations of the Dyson Heydon royal commission, which in itself should ring alarm bells. The fact that we had a discredited royal commissioner hand down recommendations when it was clear that he had an appearance of a conflict of interest at the very least, and that this government has chosen to exceed those recommendations, is of great concern to Labor, and it should be of concern everyone who believes that unions do have a right to represent working people in this country. Any country without a lawful union movement is a dictatorship. Really, to the people on the other side: I know you are not best friends with the unions, but you might want to consider what it would mean if you do not have a sufficient right to represent workers in work places. It would mean that the character of this country was changing for the worse. It would mean that we were not a democratic civil society. And it would mean that working people who are suffering now as a result of their wage growth being at its lowest in a generation would have an even harder time to properly advance their interests when engaging with their employers.

      Labor wants to see a greater level of collaboration and cooperation in work places. We want to see unions and employers work with government to tackle some of the structural challenges of this nation. That cannot happen if all we continue to do and continue to see in this parliament is a government that's at war with working people and their representatives.

      Photo of Ross VastaRoss Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      Is the amendment seconded?

      12:53 pm

      Photo of Lisa ChestersLisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

      Photo of Ross VastaRoss Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Gorton has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

      12:54 pm

      Photo of Ted O'BrienTed O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      I am a Queenslander. Only recently at Glencore's Oaky North mine were there protests by the CFMEU where they, among other vulgarities, threatened the rape of children.

      Photo of Lisa ChestersLisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      No-one has been charged.

      Photo of Ted O'BrienTed O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      And here we have the suggestion that bills such as these that address the issue of the integrity of the union movement are actually opposed by the members opposite. It saddens me deeply, as a member of this House, that such activity takes place and there is no condemnation from those opposite. In fact, there was an interjection then that implied almost defence.

      Now, we know that the Labor Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the union movement. It is the worst-kept secret in Australian politics. It's of no surprise, therefore, that the member for Gorton himself, like so many opposite—a former union official—will stand in this House and oppose any measure that the union movement disagrees with. The main line of argument from the member for Gorton was that corporations law has problems and that the measures here to address unions should be applied to corporations, yet he gave no examples whatsoever. This is a person who was a senior minister in former Labor governments, who had ample opportunity to rise in this House and address any flaws in the Corporations Act, but failed to do so. Yet he anchors his entire rebuttal of this bill today to some apparent flaws in the Corporations Act.

      I rise today in support of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, and I want to start by informing the House how shocked I was, quite frankly, when researching for this speech, to find that Australia ranks 13th on the latest international Corruption Perceptions Index. We're behind the UK, which is at 10th; Canada, which is at ninth; and well behind New Zealand, which ranks at No. 1. We've fallen by six spots in the last five years, dropping out of the top 10 in 2014. Why is this? Why has Australia dropped so far in its international ranking on the perception of corruption? Well, the widespread misconduct as identified by the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, involving embezzlement and fraud of Australia's unions, certainly hasn't helped. Integrity is at the heart of this issue. I underscore the word 'integrity', for is there any better word in the English language? 'Integrity' is defined as:

      … consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.

      It conjures images of nobleness, of strong moral ideology and a consistent framework of principles. These are words that do not typically describe many unions or employer associations. Nor, might I add, do they typically describe today's opposition.

      This bill will help restore such principles by bringing back the faith and trust that all Australians should have in their workplace representatives. Unions are often said to be fighting for the integrity of their members, of the system. But the problem is that they have given very little thought to their own integrity. That is why this bill is so important—essential, in fact. This bill is a commitment that the government gave to the Australian people in 2016, a commitment that is backed by recommendations of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. That's right: this bill enacts core recommendations from that royal commission.

      There are four key measures in this bill, four improvements to Australian law to restore integrity to Australia's registered organisations. Firstly, the bill outlines the Federal Court's ability to disqualify an officer of a registered organisation from holding office. Why is this important? Because it relates directly to someone's character and suitability to hold office in a registered organisation. It goes to the heart of their integrity. Not only does this bill automatically disqualify a person from holding office if they have committed an offence, which is punishable by five years imprisonment, but it also gives the Federal Court the power to disqualify officers for a wide range of offences, such as OH&S infringements and breaches of the Building Code. I would have thought everyone would agree that criminals should not be allowed to hold these privileged positions within Australian unions and employer associations. Australian workers deserve far better than that. The opposition has a contrary view.

      Secondly, the bill details the ability of the Federal Court to cancel the registration of organisations. The bill proposes that the Federal Court have the ability to deregister or sanction a registered organisation on the grounds of noncompliance, obstructive industrial action or corrupt conduct. The opposition disagrees with that. This bill will ensure that the court can cancel registrations where an organisation or its senior officials have repeatedly broken the law, breached their duties or failed to put their members first. The court can also apply this cancellation standard to one or more parts of an organisation.

      Thirdly, this bill considers the circumstances under which the Federal Court can send dysfunctional registered organisations into administration. This bill provides clear steps for the Federal Court to ensure we don't encounter the problems experienced when the Health Services Union went into administration in 2012. This clarity is missing under our current legislation, and this bill closes the loopholes. The bill proposes that the court can appoint an administrator to all or part of a registered organisation when financial misconduct has occurred or its officials have repeatedly broken the law or breached their duties. Yet the opposition opposes such measures. Again, these are fundamental measures expected by all Australians, measures that are appropriate and consistent with modern community standards.

      The fourth and final proposal in this bill is arguably the most important, I believe. It provides for the Fair Work Commission to consider whether an amalgamation between two registered organisations would be in the public interest. This measure creates a public interest test to be applied by the Fair Work Commission. It broadens and, more importantly, strengthens the Fair Work Commission's ability to consider the impact of a proposed merger between registered organisations. Many registered organisations have significant assets, enjoy tax-exempt status and have the power to greatly influence policy and markets. This privileged position requires careful scrutiny, especially when two or more organisations consider a merger. It also helps to realign an inequality of regulation that currently exists between corporate Australia and the union movement. Just as measures apply to companies when they seek to merge, these proposed changes apply a set of principles to ensure all matters associated with the merger are taken into account. This includes the organisation's history in complying with the law and any potential impacts on industries and the economy as a result of a merge.

      This government is committed to strengthening and fortifying Australia's integrity. This bill complements a multi-faceted approach to stamp out corruption and shore up integrity. It includes reinstating the Australian Building and Construction Commission and creating the Registered Organisations Commission, the AFP's fraud and anticorruption centre and Australia's first open government national action plan. This approach also includes recently introduced fair work amendments such as the protecting vulnerable workers bill and the corrupting benefits bill.

      I have no doubt that the opposition will argue against these measures. They will argue that it's an attack on fair play or workers' rights. Workers' rights, surely, means that what Australian workers should have is a right to fair and honest representation by people who can be trusted, by people with integrity.

      Let's not forget that more than 40 individuals and organisations were referred for further investigation as a result of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. This bill and other amendments to the Fair Work Act are an ideal opportunity for the opposition not to oppose us but to join with us, to join with the government, to instil some integrity and trust back into the union movement. If anything, the opposition should be delighted with this bill. We are handing it to them on a silver platter. It may even stem the decline in union membership. It is long overdue reforms such as these that will help make the lawlessness of the trade union movement a thing of the past. Bullying and corruption have no place in modern day Australia, have no place in today's work place. Our workers expect and deserve better. Surely all members of this chamber agree with that.

      I support this bill, and I commend it to the House, because I believe it will help ensure that those who are charged with representing Australian workers will act in their best interests, in the interests of those workers.

      1:06 pm

      Photo of Lisa ChestersLisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      If the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 is passed it will basically mean the end of democratic civil society in this country. This bill targets the Australian union movement—the right to organise, the right to come together and the right to vote on who you want to represent you. This bill tears apart the very notion of those rights. As the shadow minister said, this bill breaches international conventions. It will basically let the government and the minister of the day dictate and decide who is a fit and proper person and who can be the leaders of our unions. Australian society have every right to be sceptical of the minister having such power given the contributions of the previous speaker, the member for Fairfax, and I am sure of other speakers to come.

      The member for Fairfax talked about something that happened at Oaky North mine, but we have discovered that that did not happen. Threatening rape of a child is serious—it is a crime. Raping a child is serious and a crime. It is so disappointing that those opposite, in a bill about integrity, would stand up here and cite rumour. Queensland Police have confirmed that they are not investigating this matter. Even The Australian paper, which is no friend of the union movement, has confirmed that Queensland Police are not investigating this matter. Yet those opposite, in the pursuit of their politics, in the pursuit of passing this bill, will cite any rumour to sensationalise the issue.

      I want to say a couple of things about the Oaky North coalminers. I have met them and their families a few times, and they are good people, hardworking people who have been locked out for 100 days because their employer, Glencore, wants to pay workers less. They are using labour hire, bussing people in to do these jobs. They are purely and simply trying to kill the town of Tieri, forcing the workers to be drive in, drive out or fly in, fly out. I have met with the wives and partners of many of the people working at Oaky North, people who love their town, and they are having surveillance and security officers follow them to their kids' schools. The government is not talking about what is happening to the workers or the people who have been locked out at Oaky North. In this integrity bill, they are not talking about the behaviour of Glencore and the way in which they are bullying people. No, instead they refer to something that there is no recording of and which the Queensland Police aren't even investigating.

      It doesn't end there. This government's hatred for unions and working people knows no bounds. You would think that a bill that was about ensuring integrity would mention trying to tackle wage theft, trying to focus on the shonky operators, the people involved in labour hire scams, the sham contracting or the cases of modern slavery that have been exposed that are going on in the horticulture industry and going on in food processing. But no. This government is not interested in what is happening to working people and what is happening in some parts of our sector. Instead, the only thing that unites them is beating up on the union movement and on people's right to organise.

      This bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, does everything but ensure integrity. It proposes a fit and proper person test to hold office of a registered organisation and mechanisms for disqualification from office. This comes from a government who, in their own Liberal Party in Victoria, have one of their former directors sitting in jail for fraud. This comes from a government where the Liberal Party's own opposition leader in Victoria is famously known for the 'mobster lobster' scandal. Yet we're supposed to believe that they can bring forward a bill that talks about integrity, new grounds for deregistered organisations and mechanisms for placing registered organisations into administration.

      You cannot fault the community for being sceptical of this government when it comes to placing organisations into administration. The government's new tests for doing that include: because organisations organise protests, because they get workers together, and because they dare to let off a siren and get on a megaphone to talk about the wage theft going on in their workplaces. This government seeks to shut down civil society in our Australian democracy, starting with the union movement.

      Democracy in our society exists everywhere. Football and netball clubs have an election every year, as do school councils. It is a big part of who we are as a country. For as long as we have had Federation, we have had workers come together to organise, to have elections and to decide who they want to lead them. That is freedom. That is democracy. This government and these Liberal-National Party members are so far away from that in this bill, they can hardly call themselves the Liberal-National Party anymore. I thought the Liberal Party was about liberal individual rights and freedoms. This bill is everything but that, because it says to a group of workers: 'You don't have the right to elect who you want to represent you. You don't have the right to decide if you wish to amalgamate. We are going to introduce this new draconian system to stop you from coming together and organising collectively.' For a party and a government that claim they prefer small government over big government and claim to be about cutting down on red tape, this bill does everything but that. It puts roadblock after roadblock in the way of people wanting to collectively organise and workers wanting to stand up for themselves.

      This bill only targets workers, largely. It does not crack down on wage theft, which is now not only a hashtag in this country but a growing phenomenon. It does nothing to deal with the shonks, particularly those in the building industry. An example of that is what happened in my own electorate at the Bendigo hospital. Asset Interiors use a combination of visa workers to work on the building site, particularly on the plastering. There were workers who would come and go. There were 457 and 417 visa holders and people who were here not on working holidays but on tourist visas, and they just disappeared. The company went into receivership and then into liquidation. Small businesses in our electorate that supplied them lost out. The CFMEU organised a protest out the front of the Lendlease office to basically say, 'Lendlease, you need to take responsibility for this; you need to clean up this mess.' After a few protests, the CFMEU said: 'Okay, we will sort it out. We will pay these workers out.' Some of them lost $16,000 in back pay.

      This bill doesn't do anything to correct what happened there. It doesn't do anything to stop this from happening in the future. Instead, what it does is make it harder for that union to protest. It makes it harder for that union to stand up for those workers who lost $16,000 and were working in unsafe conditions and for those small businesses who lost money because this company went under. The CFMEU, because of the ABCC, is being pursued for holding those protests to ensure workers got what they were owed. This is the focus of this government. They will fine a union official who fails to give 24 hours notice before stepping onto a workplace $50,00—for the simple, administrative failure to give 24 hours notice. But they will not go after the company that phoenixes. They will not go after the company that rips off workers. They will not go after the company that puts people in unsafe working conditions.

      Take, for example, what happened in Perth. A backpacker fell to her death. She didn't have the experience. When she signed up for the job she thought she would be doing traffic management—turning the stop-slow sign. Instead she ended up who knows how many storeys up without the proper training and fell to her death. On that workplace, the employer didn't stop work. It took an ABC journalist calling the police and the police turning up before work on that job stopped. Yet this bill doesn't go after that employer, doesn't go after the conditions under which a person fell to their death. No: it goes after the union—the union that walked on-site to say, 'This work needs to stop.'

      This is what this government cares about. It doesn't care about working people. It doesn't care about your rights at work. It doesn't care about workplace health and safety. This government just wants to stop any opposition to its government rules—any opposition from people who might speak up against its mates in big business. This bill does not crack down on the exploitation of temporary workers or modern slavery. This bill does not address the fact that we have guest workers who are here in this country living in the most unsafe, awful conditions. It doesn't address that issue at all.

      One of the other speakers mentioned the HSU. Under current laws, there was an issue within that union, the HSU. Those people are going through court proceedings as we speak. This bill wouldn't have changed the fact of what happened in that union. People inside that union stood up to that, and those people were dealt with through the current legal system. This bill, though, doesn't help the Dorevitch workers, who've been locked out and now reinstated. Dorevitch is a company that earns millions of dollars from the taxpayer. People here may have been to them. They are a blood collection agency, basically. All the money they make is essentially from the taxpayer, from our pathology. People who work for Dorevitch on a Saturday are paid $21 an hour to collect blood. They are going through enterprise bargaining at the moment, and they can't get a fair deal. Yet this bill won't help them get a decent day's pay for the work they do. It instead targets their ability to organise.

      And it's also about what's happening in construction. This bill will not help all the unemployed construction workers in Perth, many of whom have been locked out of jobs because labour hire companies there are using 457 visa holders. This bill doesn't help them get a job back. This bill doesn't help the 700,000 workers who've lost their penalty rates—United Voice SDA members, people who work hard in hospitality, retail and pharmacy. This bill doesn't restore their penalty rates. This bill also doesn't help the Bupa aged-care nurses who are fighting for decent ratios—the ANMF. This bill doesn't help to ensure safe standards in our aged-care facilities—that there are enough nurses on every shift to ensure quality care for all of the aged residents in these facilities. This bill doesn't help them. This bill doesn't help the AMWU, the AWU and the ETU locked-out workers at the Esso Longford plant. At a time when we're talking about a gas crisis in this country, at a time when we're exporting more gas, at a time when we have a real issue when it comes to energy prices and when it comes to gas, this bill doesn't help those workers who've been locked out, who do not want to accept a massive pay cut.

      This bill basically and fundamentally goes after workers' rights to organise. It contravenes ILO core convention 87, Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948—in particular, schedules 2 and 3 in this bill, where a union can be deregistered or put into administration because of certain actions taken by two or more officials. This is what this government's doing. This is something you'd expect in countries where they do not have a proud history of freedom of association and democracy. This is what you would expect from countries like Cambodia. This is not what you expect in Australia. In Australia we have always had the right to organise, the right to stand up and the right to protest. This bill goes to the heart of that because it allows one or two officials, the minister of the day or an employer who doesn't like a bit of union pressure to make a complaint that could result in an organisation being deregistered. It says 'fit and proper person'. Again, it is being designed by a government whose own Liberal Party in Victoria have officials in jail and been confronted with headlines referring to 'lobster mobster'. They have ongoing issues.

      This is a government that doesn't really care about workers. This is a government that, for all of its preaching, does very little to crack down on the real issues in the work place, like wage theft, like breaches of occupational health and safety and like what is going on in so many of our sectors when it comes to stagnant wage growth. If you truly believe in a liberal society and in freedom and democracy you will vote against this bill, because it is basically a big step towards destroying our democratic civil society that we have always been so proud of in this country.

      1:21 pm

      Photo of Andrew WallaceAndrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

      I was in the building industry for 30 years in a past life as a carpenter, joiner, builder and building construction barrister. I have seen pretty much the best and the worst of what goes on in the building industry. I can say, without any shadow of a doubt, that I too was subjected to union thuggery. Back when I was 19 years of age and a first-year apprentice, I was being so productive on my first day of work on a building site in Melbourne that I was told to slow down by these two big, burly BLF blokes as one drove his finger into my chest. I would have been about 70 kilograms dripping wet. It's a bit different these days, unfortunately! That was just one occasion where I was personally subjected to thuggery on a building site in Australia.

      The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 seeks to return integrity to the building industry. Unlike what those opposite might believe, on this side of the House we are not against unions. In fact, a previous speaker on behalf of the opposition, the member for Gorton, talked about how we are against unions and against workers. That is totally false. We are not against unions; we are not against workers. We support workers. What we are against is unions that break the law—nothing more, nothing less. There are good unions and there are bad unions.

      The CFMEU is a bad union. I will come to the evidence of that now. This is not Andrew Wallace, the federal member for Fisher, saying this; this is Justice Jessup. In July 2016, he said:

      The CFMEU's record of noncompliance with legislation of this kind has now become notorious … That record ought to be an embarrassment to the trade union movement.

      Judge Jarrett in the same month said:

      The CFMEU has an egregious record of repeated and wilful contraventions of all manner of industrial laws.

      Justice White in April 2016 said:

      The CFMEU's compliance with industrial legislation generally has been poor.

      You might think that's the understatement of the year, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta. He said that the union's prior history:

      … bespeaks an attitude by the CFMEU of ignoring, if not defying, the law and a willingness to contravene it as and when it chooses.

      Judge Vasta said:

      It would be apt to describe the behaviour of the First Respondent—

      namely, the CFMEU—

      as "sheer thuggery". Such thuggery has no place in the Australian workplace. Contraventions of the FW Act that involve such thuggery cannot be tolerated.

      We've heard the ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, say on national television that she supports unions that don't want to follow the law but want to break the law, that if they disagree with the law they should be entitled to break it. Those opposite—some of those opposite, in particular those who were in some parts of the ACTU—have got no concept of the rule of law. One of the fundamental principles in our democracy is that no-one is above the law. That includes unions, workers and everybody. No-one is above the law, and unions have to abide by the law whether they like it or not.

      This bill arises out of the royal commission into union corruption. It is part of a suite of bills that have been put and passed by the parliament, including the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act, the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act and the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Act. There would be no-one, even on the other side, who could reasonably argue that we on this side, the government, are not trying to protect and do the right thing by all workers. That's why we introduced the corrupting benefits bill. We on this side of the fence understand that for every corrupt payment that is received someone had to write the cheque. In those instances where companies write a cheque for a corrupt benefit, they should be held to account, and they will be held to account under the legislation brought by this government—unashamedly so, because we believe in the rule of law.

      This bill does four things. This bill will strengthen the provisions of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act in four respects. Firstly, it deals with the issue of mergers. The bill will ensure that the Fair Work Commission can consider the public interest in its existing role of approving mergers of registered organisations. There is some talk—we've all heard it—that the Maritime Union of Australia and the CFMEU want to merge. Why anybody would want to jump into bed with the CFMEU is beyond me, but, be that as it may, if those two unions, two of the strongest unions in this country, ultimately merge they should be held to a public interest test just like any merging corporation. But at the moment there is no public interest test. If a corporate merger will substantially lessen competition, the Australian Competition Tribunal can approve the merger only if it is in the public interest. All we are looking to do is align those two comparisons. Interestingly, those opposite, who oppose this legislation, are happy to oppose corporate mergers when they feel it's appropriate but don't oppose mergers when it comes to the union movement. Under the changes in this bill, these are exactly the kinds of issues that the Fair Work Commission would be able to consider in the context of merging registered organisations, and Labor has not made clear why it holds a view that is different for corporations and unions.

      Secondly, this bill deals with the grounds on which a registered organisation can be disqualified. The bill adds new grounds for disqualification to the existing grounds. These new grounds will apply standards for the disqualification of officials that are similar to those that apply to company directors. It will also implement recommendations of the Heydon royal commission. The bill will ensure that disqualification is available where officials commit serious criminal offences, such as blackmail and extortion. Time and time again we have seen officials, in particular officials of the CFMEU, brought before the courts and convicted. Why any organisation would want to have a convicted criminal as part of their organisation, or a leader of their organisation, is beyond me. This bill looks at who's involved in the organisation and seeks to set up a test as to whether someone is fit and proper. If you want to be a builder—

      Photo of Mark CoultonMark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

      Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for Fisher will be given an opportunity at that time to conclude his contribution.