John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

And of course he was wrong with his election campaign that unionism was not compulsory. I found from personal experience--which is all I have to offer this place at any time—that unionism was compulsory.

We talk about transparency. Remember the last election? This government would be honest, transparent, tell-all, true to the Australian people—I think that during the campaign when we saw the real Ms Julia Gillard. We had seen a few Ms Julia Gillards as the weeks had gone on, and people like Mark Latham were doing a good job in regard to the coalition's campaign; others were leaking here, there and everywhere—and transparency was the big thing.

Union members must ask themselves a question these days: what do they get from their union? I wonder what the lady tonight working in the country hospital cleaning the toilets and the bathrooms, and a member of the Health Services Union, is getting for her union fees. These are the battlers, the essential ones who work in our hospitals. They must be absolutely disgusted with what has been revealed has happened to their funds—absolutely disgusted. And no doubt in the future, if it is not happening now, we will see a mass walk-out of the union movement because of the disgusting and dreadful way that their members are being treated. I won't go onto the Australian Workers Union—I was a member for 12 months, remember. I also remember a bloke telling me, 'You must resign when you are a financial member or they'll sue you.' I said, 'Sue away, you can't get blood out of a stone.'

But back to the legislation. Even Labor has had to finally recognise that, in its 2010 pre-election policy on superannuation, where they promised the introduction of an open, transparent and competitive process to select default funds under modern awards. I take a lot of credence out of what Senate committee reports do—a good part of this place is the Senate committee inquiries into legislation. This piece in the coalition's dissenting report struck me. I will read it out to you, Madam Acting Deputy President. This is from the dissenting report of the coalition senators into the inquiry into this legislation:

Only a half-day hearing was set aside,--

That is how important this legislation is: have a half-a-day hearing for the Senate committee to inquire into it.

with witnesses limited to just 30 minutes for each organisation--

If we talk about the rush, look at how you have rushed the Senate committee inquiry into this. Half a day for the hearing, 30 minutes for witnesses.

meaning the full range of issues has not been publicly canvassed.

It is as simple as that.

Worse still, committee members have only had days in which to assess the very complex evidence presented and draft reports and recommendations.

Transparency? Honesty? Those are words we hear from the Prime Minister at election time. Rush it through with a half-day hearing and 30 minutes for witnesses. It looks to me as though the government did not want this legislation to be scrutinised. That is what I must conclude. Surely, why not a proper Senate committee investigation? This is a big new paradigm we were told we would get when the Greens and the Independents propped up the Labor government. Mr Oakeshott said, 'It's going to be ugly but it's going to be beautiful. It's going to be a wonderful government.' Yes, let's rush things through.

Today, the government gives us just 90 minutes to debate this legislation. There are 76 senators in this place who potentially might wish to speak on this bill. But no, the guillotine will drop in 90 minutes. The bill is 100 pages long, so we are giving 90 minutes to a bill a hundred pages long—that is not even a minute a page.