Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, the report itself came through with 44 different recommendations. Again, not having seen the amendments that you are foreshadowing I may speak a little broadly to the issues that were raised regarding phoenixing and, I hope, to those who are in the process of looking at this issue.

This has been a very politically-charged debate over the past few years. This report was not a politically-charged one; some of the reports that we deal with in this place are and some are not. This really highlighted this incredible issue of phoenixing. Again, it was Senator Cameron who bought it to my attention. It is the situation whereby people within the industry will set themselves up to fail: they will subcontract work, will not pay those workers, will feign insolvency or become technically insolvent and then recreate a similar company with a similar name and with a similar board of directors—or second cousins, or friends, or next-door neighbours or faux, sham boards—to recreate themselves.

The evidence found in the inquiry was that some of the horrendous, terrible and deplorable behaviour that has gone on in this industry has occurred as the result of people desperately trying to make sure they get paid. People have hired some horrible people. Let me be clear: that is the wrong thing to do. Nobody should condone that and nobody supports that. What I think is unfortunate is the legislative environment that allows phoenixing to happen to the extent to which it is happening. It creates an environment where desperate people have done desperate things. It is horrible behaviour and it should not be supported. But at the same time, we should look at how we frame an environment where it is not necessary—where that type of behaviour is not needed.

With some of these subcontractors, the fact is that they have to price into their own business models the notion that from time to time they are simply not going to get paid—that people are going to come and shut down their businesses. There is frustration in many of these circumstances. To see someone who owes you money for work you have conducted properly reappear a week later with a different company but with a slightly amended company name is actually a huge problem that is affecting so many lives. There were 44 recommendations by the Senate inquiry, largely around bringing the Corporations Act into line with the insolvency act and also about the powers and focus that ASIC is going to have. I think that is a step in the right direction, in so far as we are having a genuine discussion about how we improve the construction industry. The priority should be phoenixing and how some of these companies have behaved.

Minister, again, I think it is disappointing that it is correct when you say that this piece of legislation was produced three years ago. I feel that this is something which could have been incorporated—or should have been incorporated—into any discussion that we were having around this industry. What the Senate economics committee found was that there was no bigger issue than phoenixing. At a practical level it is affecting those who are trying to make a living or to run a business from day to day.

But here we are again, debating this bill one more time. I hope that after we defeat this bill certainly then the government will move on and shift its focus elsewhere. But in the last week of the parliament, six months after an election, here we are debating this bill one more time. Frankly, look at the priorities we should be dealing with—