Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Code for the Tendering and Performance of Building Work Amendment Instrument 2022. I do this because for a couple of decades I lived with a partner—father of my children—who worked in a job that meant he became a member of the CFMMEU then a delegate and an official. He is a good man, amongst many good men. He never tolerated violence. He is a brave person who worked in a tough industry. I remember nervously watching him go to work as a union official the day after a brick had come through the back window of our car overnight. The building industry is a tough industry. That does not mean we should tolerate violence or misogyny. But that does not mean that we should make it impossible for delegates, officials and members in that union to do their jobs and to go to work safely, protected by their union. Too many South Australian kids and adults have died on our building sites in my state. We need courageous people who are willing to be members and officials of a union that stands up to keep the industry safe and we need to enable them to do their jobs.

This interim building code regulation is a first step to ensuring construction workers have the same rights as other workers and other unionists. Workers should be treated fairly, as should unionists. The interim code is necessary to prevent unnecessary restrictions that have been imposed on the construction industry. The previous coalition government's building code banned clauses that ensured some were not paid the same pay despite doing the same job. It prevented full-time apprenticeship ratios from being exercised. The right ratio of apprentices to more experienced workers keeps young people—apprentices—in the building industry safe. It also prevented the protection against sham contracting, which meant that workers were not protected with safe conditions on their work sites.

The previous coalition government's building code went so far as to ban the flying of union flags and logos on notice boards, stickers on workers' hats. There are plenty of workers in workplaces across Australia who have stickers that are symbolic of their membership of a union. Workers will now be able to bargain in the same way as other workers under the Fair Work Act, and the antiworker elements of the building code, a highly politicised act, will finally be removed. Workers should be treated equally regardless of the industry they work in. Requirements for health and safety for workers are still protected under legislation, and the federal safety commission will be retained. It is vital to continue, in particular, protection of health and safe try for workers in this industry.

The ABCC was a political and ideological attack on workers and on unions. Instead of protecting worker safety, it gave the previous coalition more power to persecute the very people trying to look out for the safety and fair treatment of people at work, so many of them young people. Instead of acting to address the real issues in the workforce—like ending insecure work, closing the gender pay gap and lifting the minimum wage—the previous government spent their energy trying to break a union. They tried to break its solidarity and made very specific attacks on building workers. The ABCC undermined important protections for workers in their bargaining agreements, like being entitled to the same pay for doing the same job.

The Greens have a long-held policy to abolish the ABCC and prioritise workers' safety and community safety. The government's job should be to protect the rights of unions and their workers, not to undermine them. For decades successive governments have looked after large corporations, in many cases, and workers have needed the protection of unions to stand up. So we welcome this first step towards getting rid of what has been a very ideological and political body, without real practical effect, that worked hard to demonise particular workers and their unions, and we look forward to the full abolition of the ABCC.

It's time our parliament focused on outlawing insecure work, increasing wages, protecting the health and safety of all workers, and making sure that all workers have fair access to the same entitlements and conditions. Denigrating the whole union, and the difficult circumstances that so many workers and delegates and officials do their work under, is a mistake and we should proceed to support this code.