Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) | Hansard source

It's always a great thing to get out of our capital cities and into regional Australia. I was lucky enough last week to spend some time in the bush, in particular in a great little country town in Western Australia called Goomalling. Sadly, the reason I was there was not quite so cheerful. The Australia Post branch network is under enormous pressure, and I was in Goomalling meeting with Collette and John Gibson and also Sally Martin, who runs the AusPost branch in Toodyay. Collette and John talked about the pressure they were under as owners of an Australia Post branch network business in a small country town, and, sadly, they are not alone. We have heard from right over Western Australia's regions, and right over Australian regions, that the Australia Post branch network is under extraordinary pressure—pressure to survive, pressure to be financially viable and pressure to provide communities with basic services that people in the cities take for granted.

You've got to remember that, whilst Goomalling, luckily, does still have a bank branch, over 600 bank branches in rural and regional Australia have closed over the past decade or so. This means that there are many communities out there where the only access to banking services people have is through the Australia Post managed Bank@Post network, which runs through their branch network. Australia Post is legally obligated to maintain the branch network, and I think it is Australia Post's most valuable asset. It should not be seen by corporate-level Australia Post executives as a burden that they need to have that presence right across Australia. It should be seen as their competitive advantage, and they need to think creatively and work out ways in which that legally mandated branch network can be of value. But that is not just an obligation for Australia Post; it is an Australian government owned entity, and this is also a question for the government and a question for all of those in this chamber, and the other one, to put our minds to: how that branch network can be valued, encouraged and made financially viable—because, as I have said, this is not just about Goomalling. This is not just about Collette and John, whose story I heard last week. This is about Australia Post branches right across regional Australia and particularly in my home state of Western Australia.

I've heard from Bruce Rock, where Simon Campbell and his family have run the local post office for 20 years. I've heard from Mount Barker, where licensee Sandra Perry is an absolutely respected member of the local business community. I've heard from Amanda McKenna from Williams and Lehua Chiswell from Darkan—and I could go on and on. These are businesses vital to their local community. They provide a vital service, and it is up to Australia Post management and the government, and this place, to make sure that these businesses not only survive but thrive in the modern world.

I want to congratulate the APVMA on ignoring some of the chatter from the activist classes and some of the lawfare we have seen in other countries around the use of a vital agricultural chemical, paraquat. The APVMA has reauthorized the use of paraquat, and this is of great interest and a great relief to the farming community in my home state of Western Australia. Paraquat is an essential agricultural chemical. Chemicals, by their very nature, carry risks, and all farmers and all of those who use chemicals understand that and acknowledge that. However, the APVMA, through reregistering paraquat, has said those risks can be managed. Every farmer I know—and this has changed an extreme amount over my lifetime—takes the use of chemicals extraordinarily seriously. They do not want to use one litre of chemical that they do not have to use, and they do not want to use, in fact, one millilitre of chemical that they do not have to use. But modern farming systems do require the use of chemicals in order to be efficient and feed the world. The APVMA's ruling has thankfully taken this into account and made a sensible regulatory decision.

We've seen the stories of the CFMEU and their absolutely disgraceful behaviour in the media over the last few years, but these stories just keep going on and on and getting worse and worse. It is not just the criminality and not just the violence that they have inflicted upon communities, particularly as we have seen through the inquiry in Queensland and through the police investigations in Victoria. It is also this government doing the bidding of the union movement to empower the inefficiency of these unions. We see that now in the Snowy scheme. The ANAO revealed that during the 2023—and I've got to say this is a bit of a euphemism—project reset the core contractual structure shifted, which reallocated massive costs and risks directly from private contractors and onto the Australian government. At the same time, it is also saw the CFMEU benefit enormously from both the intersection of that project reset and the empowerment given to them, handed to them on a platter, by this government through the industrial relations changes that they have forced through.

But nowhere have we seen the criminality of the CFMEU more starkly revealed than in Victoria. Geoffrey Watson SC estimated the CFMEU's conduct in Victoria on the $100 billion Big Build infrastructure program, to be at least 15 per cent. That is $15 billion of taxpayers' money flowing through corruption to union officials, standover men and, we now know, outlaw motorcycle gangs, drug dealers and organised crime. If you measured crime and corruption on a scale of zero to 10, Watson said:

New South Wales is about a two or a three, Queensland's about a five, and Victoria's about 1,000. It's insane.

This is a union that has been defended by members of the government for years and years.

Geoffrey Watson's report and the Commission of Inquiry in Queensland found the CFMEU's, 'campaign of violence was very likely planned and directed by the CFMEU leadership – principally by the secretary, Michael Ravbar, and an assistant secretary, Jade Ingham' against workers, women and children. Watson wrote:

I fear this investigation only scratched the surface of the violence in the Queensland CFMEU.

He said there was, 'obstinate refusal to co-operate from some critical witnesses' who he went on to say were, 'afflicted with widespread memory loss'. The Watson report documented conduct including bomb hoaxes, death threats, vile personal attacks and threats made against women and children. This should not be a part of the Australia we live in.

Now we see—thanks, again, to this Labor government's empowerment of the union movement through their changes to the law—unions infecting the workplaces of the north of Western Australia, which have delivered extraordinarily high wages and extraordinary productivity to this nation. (Time expired)