Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

and bizarre, Senator Scarr, coming from someone who just came from a state legislature. They have regulatory oversight of building sites and workplace safety through their state-based regulations. He was obviously not too effective a regulator as a legislator in his previous life in the New South Wales parliament. But it is an absolute outrage and a disgrace that we have to be considering this.

I thought it might be worth considering the economic impacts of this, considering where we're looking to go over the next decade. Obviously from the last parliament, due to the actions of the coalition Queensland is in the very delightful position of being able to host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. According to economic modelling, the potential impact of the removal of the ABCC is an additional 9.1 per cent to the cost of building projects over the next decade. I made a contribution in this place a few weeks ago in relation to the failure of this new government so far to put in place the deal the coalition insisted on with the Queensland government to ensure that there would be some discipline around the billions of dollars in expenditure for the construction of the infrastructure required for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032.

We have a Queensland government which at this point in time runs at the behest of the unions and is completely out of control. We're not going to put in place some very sensible provisions about the decision-making and expenditure of Commonwealth taxpayer funds on a fifty-fifty basis with the Queensland government for the construction of infrastructure. Now we're going to take away the discipline of the ABCC, and can you imagine what it's going to be like if this government goes ahead with pattern bargaining? Unions, particularly the CFMMEU, would be out of control, if they're not already, potentially adding billions in cost to the construction of the infrastructure for what will be a magnificent event for Australia in 2032, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. There's about $12 billion worth of infrastructure to be built for those games, and at nine per cent we're talking about over $1 billion. That's just for the removal of the ABCC. Just imagine what patent bargaining might do to that as well—and no economic supervision through a joint administrative body that was proposed by the then Commonwealth government. We're very concerned about how the Queensland government will make decisions about that infrastructure. When you have a Queensland minister saying that the Gabba, for example, which is a billion-dollar project, is really just a sketch at this point in time, what's there protecting Australian taxpayers' dollars? There is a lot of discussion from this government about being sound economic managers, yet the decisions that it's making are going in exactly the opposite direction in relation to a significant event that we're looking to welcome in a decade's time and the costs that might be appropriated as part of that process.

As I worked my way through the construction industry, as I said before, I saw good unions and I saw bad unions. When I was operating in the sector in a professional sense, in the administration of the construction industry, there were some in the union movement that you could have a great relationship with, who you could work with, and you could get good deals for your business and for your workforce. That's what we want to see; we want to see a constructive and positive relationship. But I can tell you that we all felt it when the bad things were happening, when big building companies did deals with big unions and the cost of that trickled down through the rest of the industry. We all saw that. We all felt that.

I already have had small businesses come to me saying that they are already being threatened by the unions. They are already being threatened by the unions, particularly the CFMMEU, because the unions know, if Labor gets this through, they're off the leash 'This is what's going to happen to you. This is what we're going to do to your business. This is how we're going to make it harder for you to work and this is what you're going to pay.' These threats are already being made in the construction industry.

I don't want to smear the frontline workers, the workers on job sites, with the same traits that are coming from the union leadership. I agree with those in the chamber who've made statements about wanting workers to go to work and come home safe. I've been there; I've been on construction sites and I know what trauma it brings right through the workforce when something goes wrong—through the workforce, through a business and through all of those associated with it. That's not what any of us want to see. This is not about being anti union. This is not about being anything other than wanting to see appropriate behaviour, good behaviour, on worksites. This is wanting to make sure that those horrific examples put on the record by Senator Hughes and Senator Reynolds don't happen again. We don't accept them in our workplace. No other worker in any workplace should accept them either, because that's not a safe workplace.

The suggestion that it's a robust industry and so you expect some of these things to the happen is a complete cop-out. I won't accept the Labor Party and the Greens running a protection racket for this abhorrent behaviour. I will stand up every day for people on the frontline in the workforce because I've been there. I'm one of the few in this place who actually has. I will be supporting this disallowance motion because it should be supported in the interests of good behaviour in the construction industry to make sure that anybody working in the sector can go to work safe, not be threatened and go home safe and that the appropriate regulatory frameworks are in place throughout the sector.