Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations: Will the Attorney-General update the House on how the Morrison government is providing stability and certainty to members of registered organisations by ensuring these organisations are working in the members' best interests and within the bounds of the law? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. As the member is aware, the ensuring integrity bill presently before the parliament establishes a fit and proper person test for holding public office in both employer and employee associations. It would also ensure that both of those types of associations are subject to reasonable standards of conduct, so where you do have instances of serious and sustained breaches of proper standards there is an ability for the courts to consider deregistration.

Why is that necessary? Because Australia now has what the court has described as the most recidivist corporate offender in Australia's history: the CFMMEU. And that is not a description of one person. As truly shocking as John Setka's record of lawbreaking is, the problem inside the CFMMEU is beyond one person. The $16.4 million worth of fines for breaking the law represents 2,160 separate instances of lawbreaking. Of those, John Setka is only responsible for 22, being one per cent. As bad as he is, he is only responsible for one per cent of the lawbreaking inside the CFMMEU. Right now, today, in court, there are 68 representatives of that organisation facing 650 charges of breaking the industrial law. The court recently found that organisation guilty of inventing false safety claims against a crane operator. That is one of many charges. The court has described that organisation's behaviour as deplorable, disruptive, abusive, threatening, appalling, disgraceful, recidivist, unjustified and, finally, depressing. Bob Hawke said of them, 'It's just appalling. I wouldn't tolerate them. I would throw them out.' That's what he said.

So why is it that Labor allows this to happen? Why do they allow it to happen? There are now two Ms in CFMMEU. Those Ms stand for 'Mo Money': Mo Money for the Labor Party. The more they break the law, the more the money flows. Let's just count backwards from last year. It's funny, we mentioned the AEC. A party political disclosure return with the familiar address of level 9, 377 Sussex Street shows: $120,000, $113,000, $218,000, $106,000, $230,000, $197,000. This is an organisation about which the court has said there is absolutely no evidence of any compliance regime. The good news, though, is there is some transparency. The money now comes in clear plastic bags, not brown paper bags as was previously the case.