Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKenzie is quite right as a Victorian senator to be concerned about the activities that were highlighted in that report. They reflect on matters that occurred in the state of Victoria at the desalination plant and elsewhere under the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate, as the Labor Party had it.

The government is extremely concerned about this report, which reveals that under Labor's emasculated inspectorate the CFMEU was allowed to get away with blue murder. According to the report, the inspectorate collaborated with the CFMEU to abandon litigation against the union for unlawful industrial action at the Victorian desalination plant. In doing so, the inspectorate knowingly disregarded external legal advice which confirmed there were reasonable prospects of success.

The report also exposes sweetheart deals negotiated between Labor's inspectorate and the CFMEU under which the union received a 50 per cent discount on the inspectorate's assessment of the likely penalties for numerous cases of industrial lawlessness. And you may well ask, 'In exchange for what?' The answer is: absolutely nothing. Under Labor working days lost due to industrial action in the building industry multiplied sevenfold. When Labor came to office it abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission and replaced it with its weak and ineffectual inspectorate. Labor's inspectorate not only failed to prosecute the CFMEU for its unlawful actions but adopted a policy of appeasement which emboldened the union's militancy. I would urge all senators to support the reintroduction of the ABCC. (Time expired)