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

It seems that barely a day goes by without reports of the blatant disregard for the law shown by certain militant union officials at construction sites across Australia. In the past few days we have seen a series of unsavoury events from Adelaide to the Northern Territory and in New South Wales. On Friday, a CFMEU official was fined $12,000 for contempt of court in entering an Adelaide hospital construction site. This follows more than $500,000 worth of fines against the CFMEU and five of its officials for an earlier incident at the very same site.

Today we hear how a New South Wales secretary of the CFMEU, Brian Parker, threatened a project manager at a school building site, in the usual CFMEU style. We also hear today how the CFMEU has been fined $45,000 for attempting to coerce a Northern Territory developer into paying its employees' union fees. Last week we also heard of Baulderstones, a company unconscionably and illegally working in cahoots with the CFMEU to demote a worker who had resigned from the union, being fined over $30,000. These are examples of this sort of ugliness, of big business getting together with big unions to deny individuals their rights. We want to stamp that out, and these are just the latest examples.

The courts have said the penalties in this area are far too low. The evidence clearly shows that we need to restore a tough cop on the beat. That is why we need to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, with an effective Building Code, and that is what the government will seek to do, despite the vote of the Senate earlier today.