Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

That happened in our government. That happened in the previous government. That probably happened in governments straight through from about the time of Andrew Fisher. But nonetheless there is a process in terms of debate coming to this place. Allegations are made about the speed of things going through and then quite rightly, if there are concerns about those allegations, we bring them back into this chamber. Sometimes the decisions are changed, sometimes not. But every time our system allows us, when there are concerns, to bring them back into this chamber. That is exactly what we are doing about this particular bill.

We are saying that, because of a whole range of complexities of interests involved in this area, there is a need for further consideration beyond one public hearing day and a report that has been presented to come back into this place. This is not a statement that I alone am making. This is a statement that has been made by a number of the witnesses that came to the hearing last week, by people in the press and by people in the discussion around the Senate inquiry. Unsurprisingly, when that Senate report was brought down on time, on 2 December, there was a government report and there was a dissenting report. This is often a standard practice in this place. But the issue about the concerns with the content and the complexity was not in the dissenting report from the opposition senators; it was in the core part of the document. It clearly states that there were issues raised by submitters about the time frame in which they were asked to bring forward their submissions and their concerns, and there were also concerns about the background of the bill, the process of the inquiry and the impact of the bill on associations.

We know that the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013 applies not only to workers' organisations—to trade unions—but also to a whole range of registered organisations. What we are saying is that the concerns are of such a nature—these issues have been on the agenda for a long time and there have been a series of pieces of legislation passed over the last few years purporting to respond to the same issues, and now we have this one that came in very early in the life of this government—that we believe that time needs to be taken to consider what has gone before; the range of issues that were raised about the need for more scrutiny; and what has happened so far through the normal interactions of reviews, through the establishment of institutions within the Fair Work Commission and through the various discussions that have gone on looking at the very important issues of transparency, accountability and responsiveness to members. All of those things are of critical import to the organisations themselves, to the members of the organisations and to the wider Australian community. On that basis, we believe that there needs to be more time, there needs to be a wider consideration and there needs to be a chance for all those involved to look effectively and closely at what has gone before.

Certainly a lot of the concerns I personally have are to do with organisations that I know well and that I know are currently working through the previous legislation about compliance and governance. That work is going on as we speak. Only on Saturday of last week I was visiting an organisation. On that day the organisation, a trade union, was having compliance training for its volunteer delegates to see what was in place in the previous legislation, which was concluded only in 2012. So what has happened? That organisation and other organisations, at considerable expense—these issues came out during the hearing—have put in place their responses and their accountabilities under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Act 2012 and are working through those processes. Now, within two to three weeks of it first being raised in the lower house and coming here, there is an expectation that another range of impositions and accountabilities, all looking at the issues that were originally raised as concerns, will impose on organisations further training, further expense and further personal scrutiny of those people who are choosing to be involved in the organisations.

I know that when he has the chance Senator Cameron will talk, because he was on the committee and he will be able to refer to both the submissions and the evidence that was given to that committee. I was not part of that, but I have spoken with some of the people who were there. Certainly it is important that we understand that a key point was that there was no doubt and no lack of commitment to the principles that any bill that is looking at fairness and scrutiny and accountability is being designed to meet. Not one submission or piece of evidence said that there was any doubt that people who are part of registered organisations should have a very structured, transparent process in place to look at accountabilities to their members and to the community to ensure that responsibilities in relation to money are fulfilled.

That process has already started. There are already quite strong elements of scrutiny in all the organisations that gave evidence to the committee. They know that previous legislation required registered organisations to have processes that prohibit members' money from being used to favour particular candidates in internal elections or campaigns. That is already in place. That issue was raised as part of the urgent need for new legislation. The current registered organisations act allows for criminal proceedings to be initiated when funds are stolen or obtained by fraud. That is a standard expectation. Not one organisation came forward during the hearings or through the submissions and said that, if one of their organisers or one of their people in their union were involved in criminal activity, it should not be exposed and subject to the law. No-one denies that. Those provisions are already in place. What is needed is full training about how that works, and that is happening now.

Also, the registered organisations act ensures that the Fair Work Commission can share information with the police as appropriate. Again, we are looking at ensuring that the operations of individuals and registered organisations are accountable, that they are subject to scrutiny and that, should anything occur that is illegal or thought to be illegal, the same processes occur as already happen in most areas—that is, that they are subject to criminal prosecution. The onus of proof is then before the legal system, as would happen with anyone accused of breaking the law. That is how it works and there is no argument about that.

The registered organisations act already provides for statutory civil penalties where a party knowingly or recklessly contravenes an order or direction made by the Federal Court or the Fair Work Commission under the registered organisations act or the Fair Work Act. That is already in place. A range of organisations are under scrutiny—and they should be. I can only speak from a trade union perspective, not from an employers' organisation perspective, and I have no particular knowledge of the Corporations Act. In many ways, they are moving through this process to make an alignment between registered organisations and corporations. I openly state that I have not worked in the corporations area and do not have knowledge about it, but I do know about how trade unions operate.

We know that there have been individuals and trade unions that have been the subject of public scrutiny. Some individuals have been found to have done the wrong thing and some individuals have been the subject of criminal investigation and prosecution. No-one argues with that. That should be the natural process. However, we are talking about changes that have put expectations on organisations that are already working within fairly tight budgets—organisations that operate to a large extent on a volunteer basis. Certainly, in my own union there were very, very few employed officials. We relied absolutely on a network of workers in our industry who volunteered to take a role in the organisation as delegates or on management committees. The kind of scrutiny that seems to be in place with this new round of expectation under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013, I believe, puts extra scrutiny on these volunteers. There is already an expectation on paid officials. There should never be any time that issues around conflict of interest or accountability with funds should not be fully accounted and fully explained to the membership. Certainly, I can say that in my union that was held as law, and we can go back and see it. Our books are open to that.

We fear that the degree of personal scrutiny that is explained in this particular change—and this was raised in the hearing—could be a disincentive to individuals working in an industry taking on extra work in their trade union on top of their job. It could be a disincentive to them saying, 'Yes, we'll do that extra work and we'll take on this extra scrutiny and accountability.' That would be a real shame in terms of building skills and engagement. We want our membership engaged. We want our membership involved. We want the knowledge and skills base of our membership.

As I said earlier, organisations are already responding to the expectations of previous legislation. My understanding is that that has been going relatively smoothly. There is an expectation that certain things are done by organisations and that they report back to Fair Work through that process about what they have done. They are not able to pass the test until they can attest that everybody who was expected to take on these roles has had the training and knows what they are doing. I have seen the forms. They have to make a very strong statement that that has been done. It has to be signed off and it says what people have done.

However, within a very short time frame—I imagine six to seven months—another range of expectations are put forward in a new bill which, in many ways, only repeats what they are doing but gives organisations the message that the work they have done has been inadequate and that they are not trusted—work that, in many ways, is done very enthusiastically. Whilst extra workload is not often celebrated, the rationale behind the need for accountability and transparency was well made. My understanding is that registered organisations have accepted that as a mark of their importance and as a mark of their own commitment to the valuable work that they do. There needs to be industrial as well as community faith that they are running well trained, skilled and transparent organisations.

That was the mark of the 2012 legislation. Faults had been identified. There had been enormous public and media coverage of the very few officials who were subsequently found to have been acting illegally. However, it seems to me that we are using the wrong test, as the percentage of people who were found to have broken the law and who have earned the distrust of members is very small as a proportion of the large number of organisations and their membership. In some ways, even more sadly, those people who have broken the law have betrayed the trust of the very people they represent and serve.

We have had this debate in this place on a number of occasions. I do not remember any difference in the views of people in this chamber on the need for organisations to be legal and responsible and so having the respect of their members and the community. We all expect the same thing. There is agreement in this chamber on what the expectations of organisations should be. The background to this motion wanting to refer a particular issue to a references committee is building on that goodwill. We want to build on the common ground to ensure registered organisations work well within the Fair Work Act for their membership and are seen by the community to be doing their job. Organisations must earn respect through the work they have done.

We believe this process deserves more time than one day of public hearings. We believe the process should engage much more widely with the organisations themselves to give them a chance to put on record what they have done in response to the previous legislation. That needs to be matched to the proposed recommendations of this legislation to see whether there is a need for a new set of regulations, examinations and processes.

It seems to me that we have heard the terms 'overregulation' and 'red tape' many times in this chamber and I remember hearing those very terms used often during recent Senate estimates with regard to a whole range of operations. There was a commitment by the current government to cut through the overregulation, over-examination and onerous workload of a range of organisations and individuals. This would make sure that the balance is right between effectively doing their job and the required scrutiny to ensure they meet expectations of performance. That is a huge battle. My view is that by imposing the expectations of this legislation, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013, we would be putting another level of regulation and scrutiny on organisations that are already subject to significant regulation and scrutiny. Some of these regulations have only been brought in during the last 12 months.

We note that this issue is of great importance. It demands greater scrutiny by the parliament, as it demands greater engagement of the people at whom this legislation is directed. Those people must have the chance to ensure that the regulation put through does the job we expect and organisations can feel part of it, not punished and overregulated but not respected for the efforts they have already made.