Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

So we're not ruling out that these matters can go to a circumstance of deregistration and also culpability, under the demerit system, against individual officials. What wasn't answered in that is the question of the sacked union delegate who had acted on behalf of those workers. A worker—who, as I said, had an exemplary record with the company—had been, as a payback for refusing to use that road, terminated. Those workers took illegal industrial action to support that worker being reinstated. That is a breach of the Fair Work Act; demerit points would be allocated for that action. That would then add to a case to be heard in the courts, amongst other cases—because, you might be surprised to hear, union delegates do get sacked reasonably regularly in different industries. And it's not because they are—as your party describes them—'thugs' but because they are hardworking people defending their workers and their fellow Australians and the general public. So, Minister, I'm still seeking an answer to the question of the union delegate being sacked and a Fair Work case being heard after an industrial action has been taken in support of that union delegate. When those demerit points are allocated, is there a case to be heard? Is there cost incurred? And can that lead to the potential of deregistration?

As you're contemplating your answer to that, I'll say this. The ROC is a judicial organisation who turned around, in the case of the Transport Workers Union, and gave them a fine for paperwork breaches, as a result of taking the matter up to court, because, the way the language of the law is set out, they, as a result of paperwork breaches—where the court ruled there was no advantage to anybody from the paperwork breaches, but it was a breach of the act—got a fine in the first instance of over $200,000. I might add: the Queensland Hotels Association, which hadn't had an election for 12 years, got a fine of $100,000. But—heaven forbid!—the system's obviously balanced! The courts are balanced! It seems very balanced to me—doesn't it to you? A paperwork breach gets a fine of over $200,000, which means you can't go out and use those resources to fight in the field, in an industry that has nine times the national average of deaths and has seen the exploitation of gig workers in the new economy, armoured car drivers being shot and bus drivers being assaulted! And we're going to have the ROC make a judicial decision. Without prejudice—'without prejudice'; that's a laugh!—they have to look at what the law says they have to do and what their obligations are. They can't say, 'I like the way he parts his hair,' or, 'I like the way she wears her dress,' or—I don't know—whatever horrible things they might say when they make these decisions. They have to make the decision based on the facts.

I'll just go back to the question. If a union delegate, as in the example I gave before, gets sacked because he puts a ban on and supports a ban, as a spokesperson for those workers, where rocks are being thrown off overhead bridges and the workers are taking illegal industrial action—which it is—will there be demerit points? And can those demerit points lead to a case and the expense of deregistration or potential deregistration if enough points are lost?