Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, I would hope they are Australian made. It is no surprise, therefore, that APRA imposed additional licence conditions on Cbus to engage an independent expert to review whether their CFMEU board members are meeting their legal duties. Is this because APRA hates the unions? Is this because APRA hates the CFMEU? I don't think so. I don't think it's because they hate them. I think it's because APRA is very, very worried about the actions of the CFMEU, as they rightly should be and as everybody in this chamber should be. Just because you call someone out, just because you call out misconduct, doesn't mean you have a hatred for that organisation or for what their mission is. But we are right in this. If we can't call people out in this place for egregious misconduct and criminal activity, then when will we do it? How can we face the people who have elected us to represent them here if we remain silent on these things?

The Labor government and APRA should be pushing Cbus to cut ties with the CFMEU. This means kicking the three CFMEU directors off the board and stopping the endless flow of workers' money to the CFMEU. Let's not forget that the money that Cbus has is the money from its workers, the money that it is meant to be investing for the benefit of its workers. On the one hand, we are in agreement that the CFMEU should be in administration; we actually think it should be deregistered, but administration is fine. But I fail to see how an entity that has been put into administration could be receiving money from a super fund that belongs to members of that fund. I would like somebody to explain that to me and why it is okay, because I don't think it is.

Just a quick update, before I finish, on where the HAFF is at the moment. This is Labor's flagship housing policy, the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, and so far it has built 17 homes here in the ACT. I was listening to Senator Bragg in estimates when he was questioning Labor on how many dwellings they had built. I was just trying to remember who was in the room at the time, but it escapes me right now. The comment was that they had acquired and converted 340 houses from existing builds. It was an interaction between Senator Bragg and Senator Gallagher in the economics committee. I remember Senator Bragg's shock at the comment, 'acquired and converted'. It means they bought 340 houses that had already been built, and they effectively renovated them so that they were suitable for whatever type of housing they were seeking to put into the market. That means the government had actually entered the market and purchased 340 houses during a housing crisis, which meant young Australians or entry-level buyers could then not buy them. Was that lost on anybody? They've just created an additional barrier to entry for young Australians. It's quite extraordinary. Instead of building homes, Labor are building bureaucracies and barriers to entry. The Housing Australia Future Fund has been one of the greatest public policy failures in recent history. They promised to build 1.2 million homes by 2030, and—this is not me saying it—advice from Treasury has revealed that this promise will be broken.