Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation. Will the minister update the House on how the government is ensuring that members of registered organisations get a fair deal? Is the minister aware of a different approach?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Put simply, the approach of the Turnbull coalition government after the last election was to introduce the Registered Organisations Commission, the independent regulator for registered organisations, be they unions or employer organisations. The alternative is those opposite, who want to abolish the Registered Organisations Commission.

Those opposite, the Leader of the Opposition and his team, want to abolish the very organisation that was investigating individuals like Derek Bellan, the former secretary for the New South Wales branch of the National Union of Workers, who was sentenced to four years jail yesterday for intentionally defrauding union members of more than $650,000. As Magistrate Elizabeth Ellis told the court:

The workers that came under the NUW included factory workers, storemen—that is those at the lower end of the wage spectrum where membership came out of what I can only consider to be scant, spare funds …

And what was Derek up to? He was up to a bit of the following: botox injections, home tanning kits, P&O cruises. So the botox and the tanning kits now make some sense; you can't turn up with wrinkles and no tan. He had brass knuckle stubby holders—yes, you need those on the cruise, to hold your beer—a tattoo of his parents on his calf—jeez, that's a bit ordinary—and lawyers for his divorce. He was using members' funds for his divorce, so obviously the cruise didn't go that well. And he was using members' money on websites like cupid.com and match.com—so, obviously Derek's bounced.

Why would the Leader of the Opposition vow to get rid of a body that investigates individuals like this and prosecutes them where they see fit? Why, because, as The Daily Telegraph revealed in August 2015, the National Union of Workers helped fund a slush fund to help Mr Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, become the Leader of the Opposition against the people's choice, the member for Grayndler. These are the kinds of union members that the Leader of the Opposition has done his secret deals with. Whether it's the CFMEU—we still don't know what's in that—or whether it's John Setka as he kicks and assaults police, these are the people that the Leader of the Opposition is beholden to. Even those on his own front bench who don't know what's in these secret deals have claws. They are, to their credit, not naming themselves but they are talking to journalists. The Leader of the Opposition will put his union mates ahead of all Australians, whether or not they are union members, on every occasion. We must ensure that he remains the Leader of the Opposition.