Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The answer is yes, the amendments should be agreed to. I quote from the book Behind the Exclusive Brethren, by Michael Bachelard, produced by Scribe Publications in Melbourne and recently released. It says:

In Australia in the 1940s, this was a problem—

that is, the unions—

for Brethren firms. Union-preference clauses in state and Commonwealth legislation made membership of unions compulsory for most employees, particularly those working under an industrial award. Here was a law that was clearly, in Brethren minds, ‘contrary to the will of Christ’. So church elders began a campaign of lobbying, at the level of state governments, to exempt their businesses, on the ground of conscience, from union-preference clauses.

The lobbyists’ first success was in Queensland, in 1948—

and in New South Wales in 1951. It goes on:

In 1956, conscientious objection for the Brethren became part of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, after which it flowed to … all other states except Victoria.

I am moving quickly here, Chair. It continues:

The Brethren representations to governments, federal and state, continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and were almost exclusively made to discuss some aspect of industrial relations law. Ron Fawkes remembers visiting Malcolm Fraser in the 1970s—

Ron Fawkes being a member of the Exclusive Brethren. It goes on:

But in 1974 something happened that would change the Brethren’s relationship with politics forever: the election of a promising young Liberal MP, the local member in the seat of Bennelong, where many of the Brethren high-fliers lived. His name was John Howard.

It goes on to talk about that particular relationship. It says:

One of the issues on which Howard and the Brethren firmly agree is industrial relations policy. When it came to industrial relations, and other issues of ‘conscience’, the election of John Howard as prime minister in 1996 represented the best news the Brethren had ever had from the political sphere. By that time, thanks to the ascendancy of the new Right in Australian politics, a strong move had been afoot for over a decade to rid employers of the union ‘closed shop’.

It goes on then to describe the evolution of the current laws whereby in Work Choices the law was changed to not only facilitate the Brethren having the ability, if employers and employees agreed, not to have unions allowed into work places but also, since 2002, give Brethren employers the sole right to ban unions from looking at the workplaces of employees even if the employees requested that right. That is a situation that should not be allowed in any Australian workplace.

I did explain yesterday the difficulty there is with the imposition in the workplace of the mores—and some of them are quite strange to say the least—of the Brethren. I quote again from Mr Bachelard’s book:

But the provision does prevent employees from organising for any other reason—to advocate for a better lunchroom, or greater health and safety provisions, or to complain about ill-treatment or discrimination. In New Zealand, a Brethren-owned medical-supplies company banned their multicultural staff from speaking any language other than English, even in the lunchroom, and then used their exemption certificate to prevent a union coming in to hear the staff complaints.

‘They just hate the unions for some reason,’ said Fawkes. ‘I think it was just the mindset of the whole thing.’

We know that 33 workplaces are protected under what is an Exclusive Brethren clause, although it is not called that, in Australia. No other religious group, sect or philosophical organisation takes advantage of this so-called conscience clause. It is used primarily, indeed solely, by the Exclusive Brethren to disadvantage their workers in the workplace and, I reiterate, in particular, women. It ought not stand. We should have no restriction and no special clauses in workplace relations for a very secretive cult like the Exclusive Brethren. Hence, the Greens oppose clause 485 in the following terms:

(2)    Clause 485, page 394 (line 26) to page 395 (line 24), to be opposed.