Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is totally staggering that the Labor Party is suggesting that any individual should be summarily sacked as soon as an untested allegation is made against them and without any form of due process. That is an astounding suggestion coming from a Labor Party and opposition completely beholden to the CFMEU. It was, in fact, only this Tuesday night that Mr Hadgkiss admitted to a contravention of the Fair Work Act, and he summarily submitted his resignation to the government that evening.

We have said time and time again that this is a government that firmly believes in the rule of law. Unlike the Labor Party, this is a government that practises what it preaches. Our commitment to upholding the rule of law stands in stark contrast to that of those opposite, the leaders of Australia's trade union movement and their supporters. When it comes down to it, this is really nothing more than a smokescreen from those opposite to cover up the extraordinary revelations that we heard yesterday when the CFMEU was handed unprecedented penalties for its concerted campaign of industrial lawlessness at the Barangaroo building site in Sydney. The judgements and incredible fines—they were fined $2.4 million—that came out yesterday demonstrated the utter contempt that the corrupt CFMEU has for the law, which is echoed in the words of Sally McManus from the ACTU that there is nothing wrong with breaking the law.

This government will not be lectured by those who hold such contempt. The recidivist, militant CFMEU officials continue to believe that the law doesn't apply to them. Enough is enough. The opposition leader, Mr Shorten, must immediately and unreservedly cut ties with what has become Australia's most notorious union. I want to quote from the judgement yesterday. This extraordinary announcement is from Justice Flick:

It is difficult to perceive how such conduct can be regarded as in the best interests of the bulk of its members and the workers it supposedly represents. Such conduct may promote the CFMEU as a "militant" union. But the constraints imposed by the law apply to all including the CFMEU.

What I find most galling is that, in a week when the world sits at a point of military brinkmanship on the Korean peninsula, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Cuban missile crisis, and a week where successive failures of Labor state governments and Labor federal governments have left our nation on the brink of a looming energy crisis that quite clearly only the Turnbull government has any solution for whatsoever, no alternative policies have been presented by those opposite. The Turnbull government is clearly the only government capable of providing a solution. In a week when economic data is finally showing the green shoots of a flourishing economy—more jobs; 250,000 jobs in just over six months, 80 per cent of which are full-time—in this week, when we have this news, this is the subject that the opposition chooses to pursue: Mr Hadgkiss's resignation. The integrity deficit of those opposite is as broad as it is deep. These militant unions not only own your party, but they own your souls and, as demonstrated today, you are an opposition that lacks both substance and civility.