Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Sheldon. I know that there's much more that you would have liked to have said about the ABCC but I do just want to get a couple of things on the record, specifically about the motion that we're dealing with here and regarding the order to produce documents. We will obviously be speaking further tonight about the disallowance motion, on the same matters that Senator Cash as lodged, and I'll have a bit more to say there.

Specifically on the order to produce documents, I want to make the point that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has identified documents that were in scope for the Senate's order to produce documents that was moved by Senator Cash last week, and he presented those documents to me for tabling.

Senator Cash asked for correspondence between the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations with the ABCC and the Fair Work Ombudsman. Those documents have been provided by the minister, except where they reflect deliberations of cabinet, refer to legal advice that is subject to legal professional privilege or refer to current proceedings before a court. Senator Cash also asked for briefings from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in relation to the changes to the building code and the potential abolition of the ABCC.

In-scope briefings on the approach to amending the building code and abolishing the ABCC were provided by the minister and had been tabled, except where they reflect deliberations of cabinet, refer to legal advice that is subject to legal professional privilege or refer to current proceedings before a court. Information that is unrelated to the specifics of the Senate order was either redacted or not provided, if it was a full page, and personal information and contact details that are not public have also been redacted.

I don't know whether there were any other speakers, particularly, on the OPD, but in the 50 seconds I have left I might just respond very briefly to a couple of things that have been said in this debate by members of the government. As I said the other day, the irony of Senator Cash, of all people, lecturing anyone about the need to consult or show courtesy—I'd like Senator Cash to advise us whether she or her office ever consulted the AWU before her office leaked a police raid on the AWU. Did they show courtesy to the AFP before their office leaked information about the police raid on the AWU? And we have consulted the Australian population, the entire Australian population, about our plans to abolish the ABCC. It's called an election. We took this policy to an election. We won the election and we now have every intention of delivering on that promise that we took to the election.