Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to indicate that Labor will be opposing the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in his second reading speech, argued that he had fought the double dissolution election on our industrial relations commitments and they had won. I think there might have been one day when there was one small mention of industrial relations during the election campaign, but for the Prime Minister to argue that the last election campaign was fought on this bill is another example of where this Prime Minister has really lost the plot.

He went on to talk about grave failures of governance and a lack of accountability and transparency. I think the biggest failures of governance in this country have been the failures of governance in the banking industry, where the banks are systematically ripping off ordinary Australians, and this government will do nothing about it. This government refuses to have a royal commission into the banking industry, the biggest corporate rip-off that we have seen in this country for years.

He talks about setting up a robust regulator with appropriate powers and resources. I will come to it a bit later, but we have seen what their robust regulators do, with the ABCC and the absolute contempt shown by the ABCC—or Fair Work Building and Construction, who would like to be the Australian Building and Construction Commission. It is a regulator that does not care about accountability and does not feel that it should have to be accountable.

Malcolm Turnbull went on to talk about meaningful sanctions that can be applied when wrongdoing is revealed. There are plenty of sanctions there: the people that have been involved in wrongdoing are in jail, where they should be. Anyone that rips off money from workers and trade unionists should go to jail. That is where they should be—absolutely in the slammer, where they deserve to be.

Then the Prime Minister went on to say that the government has an unambiguous mandate from the Australian people to ensure that the registered organisations act is transparent and accountable. The transparency and accountability are there, and the transparency and accountability will be from what we are proposing, the amendments that we will propose to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill. We are proposing that ASIC investigate serious contraventions, not some mate of the coalition, put in there on hundreds of thousands of dollars to run the coalition's agenda from within a government organisation. We are arguing for tougher penalties, because we have no time for any trade union official, or anyone, who would rip off workers through the union movement.

We are proposing a cracking down on dodgy auditors. We are arguing that whistleblowers should be protected and encouraged. If someone wants to blow the whistle on anyone in the trade union movement that is doing the wrong thing, that should be dealt with. It should be dealt with unequivocally and in a clear manner, and the whistleblower should be protected. We are also arguing for transparent disclosure and disclosure thresholds.

I have to say to you I am appalled at the hide of the Prime Minister and of this party, the party who gave us Work Choices, the 2014 budget, the ABCC and trickle-down economics. How dare this party masquerade as a government who cares for rank and file unionists? It does not care about rank and file unionists. We know what its agenda is: to destroy effective trade unionism in this country so that the mates that keep throwing the money into its bank accounts for election after election—the big end of town—get more profit at the expense of ordinary working people. This is the party who gave us unfair individual contracts. Remember the Spotlight workers—women trying to help their families get food on the table, unmercifully ripped off by Spotlight under this government's Work Choices legislation. This is the party who reckons that, if you go on the job, you should simply do what the boss tells you, with no rights when you go on the job. You clock off your rights when you clock on, and the boss has complete managerial control. This is the mob that is trying to tell us that it is doing this to help ordinary workers and ordinary trade unionists. This is the mob that wanted to get rid of penalty rates, which are absolutely essential for many families to make a living and actually put food on the table, send their kids to school, and buy the school shoes and schoolbooks as and when they are needed. It wants to get rid of penalty rates, annual leave loading, bargaining rights and every long-held protection that workers have fought for in this country.

The crossbench should understand that this is just one aspect of how the coalition are going to set about doing this. This is not simply the end of the story for the coalition; this is part of a long-term strategy that they have to diminish the capacity of the trade union movement to represent workers and have decent bargaining rights in this country. If they were the mob that were going to look after workers, why have they treated the public servants, their employees, with absolute disdain and contempt over the last three years? If they were the great protectors of the trade unionists in this country, why have they not bargained in good faith with the Public Service in this country for almost three years?

This is the mob that says it is going to look after trade unionists, and it appoints a professional union buster, Mr John Lloyd, as the Public Service Commissioner—a man who has made his livelihood attacking trade unionists and workers' rights for as long as he has been in public service in this country.

This is the mob who would destroy the apprenticeship system and shift the cost of training from the employer to the apprentice. It determined that there would be student builders to appease former Senator Bob Day and make sure that Senator Bob Day's vote continued to be provided to the coalition. Former Senator Bob Day asked for $1.4 million so he could rip apprentices off, and what does this government do? It says: 'No, Bob, we're not going to give you $1.4 million. How about $2 million to get rid of apprenticeships in this country?' This is the mob that, because it is supporting that Bob Day proposal, would destroy the trade certificate system in this country just to appease former Senator Bob Day.

The great protectors of the trade union movement, as they were trying to portray themselves, are the very mob that would seek to deny women workers decent maternity leave. That is what they are about. Do not ever be fooled into thinking that this lot have any bone in their body that is sympathetic to the trade union movement or workers in this country. They are the lot that would deny workers an increase in superannuation. I know that, when I first became a union official, one of my first jobs was to try to get superannuation for ordinary workers. If you were a blue-collar worker under the coalition, what happened with you then was that, if you left the job, you lost your superannuation, because there was no vesting of your superannuation for a blue-collar worker in this country—absolutely none. They supported that, and they opposed superannuation. So, for every condition that makes workers' lives in this country a bit better and easier and makes it easier for workers to go home to their families and say, 'Look, I've got a decent wage and decent conditions and I'm feeling all right about myself and my job,' this is the lot that would take that away.

They really are the party who support Wall Street wages for the boss and Bangladesh wages for ordinary workers in this country. They have been like that for as long as I have been in this country, and that is over 40 years. That is what they are: Bangladesh wages for workers and Wall Street wages for the mob that put the money in their back pocket. That is what they are about. They are the party that believe it is okay to sack a worker unfairly. I could not believe that we have legislation that says, basically, that you can treat a worker unfairly and then you can sack them. This is just beyond belief.

This is the party that rails against unions while turning a blind eye to young, inexperienced Irish and German backpackers being killed on dangerous construction sites. Do you ever hear coalition members come in and say, 'This is terrible that this construction company had no safety on the job and were using backpackers and the backpackers got killed under huge lumps of concrete, or a young German backpacker—a young woman, a female worker with no experience in the building and construction industry—fell many metres and met her death'? Do they say anything about that? No, they do not. This is not the mob that would support trade unionists in this country.

This is the party who ignores the plight of 457 workers being ripped off by senior Liberal Party members and Liberal Party donors. Just look at subclass 457. When was the last time you heard coalition members say anything about the workers working on 457 visas in 7-Eleven shops right around the country? They say nothing. They do nothing. The only thing you hear from this lot is attacks on the trade union movement.

This is the party that has given us the most incompetent, arrogant and biased public servant ever in this country, Mr Nigel Hadgkiss. Mr Hadgkiss, the head of Fair Work Building and Construction, who treats his accountability to the Senate with absolute contempt. Hadgkiss, who treats the estimates process as unimportant and not requiring honest and open answers. Hadgkiss, who believes maintaining a diary is his prerogative and not the need for any accountability for the expenditure of taxpayers' money.

This is the mob who talk about accountability and transparency and failure of government when it comes to unions. They only do that when they are attempting to smear the great Australian trade union movement. Yet, when it comes to the Liberal Party itself, when it is discovered to be more corrupt than any trade union movement in this country, when it systematically goes around breaching electoral laws in New South Wales, when ICAC exposes the Liberal Party for its dishonesty, for its corruption, what does it do? It does not say to ICAC, 'Great job; well done'. It changes the laws to define ICAC. That is what this lot do. So if it is the trade union movement and there are a minority of problems in the trade union movement, then you impose legislation that takes rights away from all workers. When it is the Liberal Party—up in Newcastle, sitting in the back seat of the Bentley, taking brown paper bags with 10 grand of illegal donations to the Liberal Party—what do you hear from the Liberal Party? A big fat zero. Nothing.

How dare the Liberal Party come here and lecture us about accountability and proper process? If they deal with the problems in the Liberal Party they might have an argument to come here and raise issues about any other organisation in this country. But they cover up the corruption in the Liberal Party, they cover up the corruption in the banks, they cover up the corruption in the farming sector where workers are being mercilessly ripped off. All they do is they come in here day after day attacking the trade union movement, when the real problems in this economy are the people who are supporting those opposite. They come in here after losing 10 Liberal Party members in New South Wales because of the corruption watchdog in New South Wales. Ten members of the Liberal Party gone because of corruption in New South Wales. Senator Sinodinos has memory loss. Every day that he was in ICAC he lost his memory, but he was prepared to take thousands of dollars from a company that was going bust—or even had been bust—to travel from the eastern suburbs to a meeting in the western suburbs of Sydney. Those are the types of people we are dealing with across the chamber.

They are the mob who ignore the greed and avarice and financial destruction of innocent families by the big banks. They are the mob who want to hand $50 billion in tax cuts to big business, including the banks. Why would anybody give the banks a tax cut when they are ripping families off day-in day-out, screwing families every day? This is the mob who are presiding over rising inequality and declining living standards. Surely that is the issue the public would want any government to deal with? They rail against red tape and big government, but when it comes to attacking the union movement or paying off their mate Bob Day, there is no limit to the amount of taxpayers' money that can be splashed around—absolutely no limit. They ignore the existing regulatory bodies, and they create more bureaucracy and red tape by establishing another regulatory body. Never too much red tape when it is used against the trade union movement!

They now want to create a new, highly paid position, the Registered Organisations Commissioner—another Nigel Hadgkiss or John Lloyd in the making.

Australian workers have a right to question this mob. The crossbench should be questioning it, because this is more red tape and more ideology at work. This is ignoring the real problems in the economy and taking the worst aspects of problems in the trade union movement and saying they apply everywhere. They do not. Australian workers have a right to belong to independent trade unions. I was a union official for 27 years, 11 years as National Secretary of the AMWU. I received the ACTU award for outstanding commitment to the Australian trade union movement. I know a bit about the Australian trade union movement. My record as a union official is on the public record. My activities are an open book: fighting for workers' wages and conditions, for superannuation, for shorter hours, for health and safety and for decent jobs and industry policy, and working with employers to improve the productive performance of companies. I was a member of Mr Keating's best practice advisory committee, where we went to companies who did not even have a business plan. How crazy was that? Yet it was the trade union movement, working with government, that actually modernised whole areas of Australian industry. I was responsible for putting an external review board into the AMWU so that accountability was there. Any member could go to former deputy president of the New South Wales commission Jim Macken, former Senator Barney Cooney and former Victorian Premier Joan Kirner, and take any complaint about the operation of the union to them.

This is just one step in a broader attack on the trade union movement. The government should be dealing with the real issues and should lay off the trade union movement, because without unions wages, conditions and living standards in this country will decline. (Time expired)