Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to comment on the role of the unions and the Labor Party in the workplace relations debate and also canvass the scurrilous decision by the Labor government in my home state of Tasmania to appoint union officials as workplace safety inspectors. But, firstly, I wish to place on record my disgust at the baseless and grossly offensive assertions made by Tasmanian Labor MHA Heather Butler in the Tasmanian parliament last month linking the Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard, and the Work Choices reforms to a man’s suicide. This is low, cynical and callous politics of the worst order. Heather Butler asserted in state parliament that a man committed suicide because he lost his job and was denied union representation under the Work Choices laws. She has never retracted her callous remarks. I will not name the deceased man, although I find it extraordinary that Mrs Butler named him in her speech. According to the Hansard of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, she said:

Mr Speaker, John Howard’s unfair workplace relations changes surely have contributed to … death. Feeling so alone and denied his union’s counsel and support, he decided to end his pain. John Howard, you took this safety net away. Tasmania in general and the Break O’Day community in particular is poorer for the passing of …

Mrs Butler’s speech is wrong. It is actually unlawful under Work Choices to prohibit union representation in any way at the workplace. The right to be represented by a union at the workplace is even protected in the Work Choices laws. At the time, I called on Mrs Butler to retract her uninformed and grossly offensive assertions, but she has not, preferring to clam up and say nothing. I called on Premier Paul Lennon to force her to retract the comments, but again silence. A motion was moved in the House of Assembly by state Liberal MP and former opposition leader the Hon. Rene Hidding condemning Mrs Butler for her actions, but still she did not respond. I have a copy of a letter written to Mrs Butler by the Mayor of Break O’Day Council, Robert Legge, which I would like to read to the Senate. It states:

Dear Heather

I am absolutely disgusted with your outburst about unknowledgeable comments in Parliament yesterday about a tragedy that occurred in the Fingal Valley.

As if it was not bad enough that you raised the issue so soon after the tragedy but your actions would have done nothing to help the grieving process.

To bring this issue to the public arena before any coronial inquest could be held is reprehensive and irresponsible. Given the circumstances it is not appropriate for any response to your inaccurate allegations.

You should also be aware that your claims relating to Union Representations are incorrect and misleading.

More importantly however, your claims are totally incorrect this had absolutely nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Laws that were introduced earlier this year.

This is nothing short of political point scoring at the expense of a grieving family.

I would expect that you will give an apology in Parliament and withdraw your comments today.

The letter was signed by Mayor Robert Legge, and he kindly forwarded a copy of the letter to me, Paul Lennon, Will Hodgman and Rene Hidding. But there has been no response from Mrs Butler. I ask Tasmanian Labor senators on the other side to advise Mrs Butler of the importance of providing an apology.

Nevertheless, this is consistent with much of the scaremongering that has been conducted by the Labor Party with respect to Work Choices. The politics of fear is what they have been conducting over many months—indeed, years. In fact, when you look at it, you will see it is not an isolated incident. I have had a look at the claims made in various Labor and union representations and I want to refer to them today. The first and most obvious is the appalling claim made by ACTU President, Sharan Burrow, on ABC’s Lateline program in relation to the campaign against Work Choices. She said: ‘I need a mum or a dad of someone who’s been seriously injured or killed. That would be fantastic.’ Ms Burrow failed to repudiate that statement or indeed apologise to the public—and nor was she condemned by Mr Beazley for that outrageous claim.

What other scaremongering and scurrilous comments have there been? In a doorstop on 27 March, Wayne Swan said with respect to Work Choices that it is the ‘insertion of a virus, a deadly virus, which will spread throughout this country’. In a doorstep on 2 April, Stephen Smith said, ‘The reality is that, in the workplace, a gun is being held to the head of every Australian employee.’ In Brisbane on 10 April, Mr Beazley said:

Mums and dads know that Howard’s industrial relations laws are throwing their kids to the wolves.

On 27 March, Wayne Swan also said:

What the Australian government is putting in place is a situation where they want to create an army of working poor, putting rules in place which will lead to that in the long term. It’s a long term threat to the fair go in this country and one which all Australians should be concerned with.

Brian Boyd from the Victorian Trades Hall Council, on 26 May last year, said:

This is not ‘liberating workplaces’, it is enslaving workplaces with employers having the whip hand over bonded labour.

David O’Byrne, Secretary of the Tasmanian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, on Hobart radio on 27 May last year, said:

What these changes are designed to do is to crush the hope of all workers.

Mr Beazley, in an interview with Neil Mitchell on 3AW on 14 October last year, said:

You know this is a declaration of war on the ordinary Australian workforce.

On 2 November last year, he said:

... with the extreme laws that John Howard’s Minister has introduced into Parliament today he will in time push many Australian working families over the financial edge.

Then we got the mention of divorce. On 2 November last year, Beazley said that it:

... is not good for the economy for workers to be unable to afford their holidays, their relaxation or a decent family life. Divorce is not good for the economy. Divorce is patently bad for the economy.

He made a direct link. You see the tapestry of scaremongering and the tapestry of misrepresentation through all these quotes from the Labor Party and the union movement. They are tied together—two heads on the same body. What is worse? Murder. Bob Smith MLA, in the Victorian parliament on 4 October last year, said:

The history books show what happened in America. People on picket lines were murdered. Women and children were killed, and that is the road this Prime Minister wants to take us down. It is a disgrace.

Bill Ludwig from the Australian Workers Union, in a submission to the Senate inquiry on 17 November last year, stated:

Our kids are going to school with bare feet because parents couldn’t afford shoes.

And now, through legislation, you’re going to wipe away all of those allowances, all of that justice that was delivered over a long period of time.

It goes on and on and on, but I am not going to pursue it much further other than to point out two main allegations made by Labor and the union movement about Work Choices. Bill Shorten from the Australian Workers Union said that it was ‘a green light for slashing jobs’ and that ‘it is going to cut wages’. But what has happened since Work Choices has been introduced? There has been a 175,000 increase in the number of new jobs, most of which are full time. In the last 10 years there has been a 16.4 per cent increase in wages across the board and an increase in wages since Work Choices came in. So those two allegations from the Labor Party and the unions have been found to be entirely false, baseless. The sky was to fall in; it has not fallen in.

Their self-serving conspiracy is purely aimed at milking millions of dollars in union dues for the next election campaign and filling up Labor Party coffers for a fighting fund. Since 1996, $47 million has been extracted from union membership, whether or not members vote for Labor. The unions are planning on giving Labor a further $20 million in union membership dues to fight next year’s federal election.

I want to give one other example of a special deal for special mates. In my home state of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Premier supported his Attorney-General, Steven Kons, in the appointment of four union officials—two AWU officials, two CFMEU officials—to exclusively undertake occupational health and safety inspections in the mining sector and the building and construction sector. Why would this be? Surely this is a recipe for union intimidation. It will certainly compromise, and has already compromised, the independence of Workplace Standards Tasmania—a state government agency. Minister Kons announced publicly, in a media release, that he had the support of the various industry associations. He was quoted as saying that they were ‘comfortable with these arrangements’. When I heard of that, I contacted the industry associations, expressing my surprise, and asked: ‘Are you comfortable with this? Do you support it, as Minister Kons said?’ They said no, they do not support it; they were entirely opposed to it. Those associations were the Master Builders Association, the Mines and Metals Association, the Tasmanian Minerals Council, the Housing Industry Association and the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which, on the front page of their newspaper, the Tasmanian Business Reporter, described it as outrageous. All those industry associations oppose it.

Minister Kons has deliberately misled Tasmanians for the sake of those special deals—special deals for special mates. He has also claimed that this was a trial in modelling similar systems existing on the mainland states. I thought, ‘That is strange; this does not sound like what would be happening on the mainland.’ I made inquiries. Guess what? That is another furphy—no such models exist. Was it a shonky deal? Was it another deal struck by his predecessor, the Hon. Bryan Green? Earlier this year Mr Green was stood down as Deputy Premier in Tasmania for fast-tracking cosy and very profitable deals with former Labor mates before the last Tasmanian election. Again, you see the theme, the tapestry, of special deals for special mates. The TCC, the company involved, was run by former Labor ministers, and they had a multimillion-dollar monopoly contract to carry out building accreditations. Workplace safety on trial is like giving a player a turn as umpire during a game of football and expecting that the player will exercise total independence and integrity. What nonsense! So why is the trial exclusively for union officials? There is no reason, other than what I have said. The integrity of mine safety is at risk and the integrity of building and construction safety is also at risk.

On the front page of today’s Australian we see confirmation that Kim Beazley wants to rip up AWAs. The Prime Minister signed the one-millionth AWA just recently. In Tasmania we have over 24,000 AWAs. On average, AWAs in Tasmania are delivering 48 per cent better value to the people employed under them than that delivered to the people employed under awards. So those men and women on awards will be disadvantaged big time, as will their families.

Mr Graeme Sturges claimed today that Work Choices is already starting to have an impact on wages. We have higher wages and more jobs under Work Choices, so he is wrong. In the Australian newspaper there is an excellent story which says that two states, Victoria and Western Australia, are not backing Mr Beazley on his view. I ask Mr Lennon and the Lennon government whether they back Kim Beazley in supporting the scrapping of AWAs. (Time expired)