Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I want Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding and those who are listening to this to remember how many times this urgent matter has been on the Notice Paper. As honourable senators would note, this is the second incarnation, if you like, of a bill that was rejected by the Senate last week. How urgent was this matter for the government? How urgent was this matter for the minister, who is apparently staking his reputation on it? Not urgent at all. On three occasions this actually got to the Notice Paper. Was it debated? We are going back to February. It was on the Notice Paper at least twice in February and, from my recollection, it was on at least once last year, so there is absolutely nothing urgent about this at all.

The other fallacy of the minister’s argument is that he constantly neglects to talk about the fact that he has cherry-picked from electoral reform tax deductibility and disclosure. Why didn’t he come into this place and tell us why the union movement is not part of a cherry-picked campaign finance reform? Honourable senators on this side know there is a very good reason for that and there are $31 million worth of reasons why the trade union movement is not part of holistic reform: $31 million-plus was paid by the union movement to go into the Labor Party’s campaign finances. How have we seen that repaid? We have seen it with the so-called Fair Work Bill 2008. What has been given to the union movement in a non-mandated part of this legislation are those appalling rights of entry, an appalling breach of privacy which the Australian Labor Party has given to the trade union movement as a square-off for their $31 million-plus.