Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask Senator Wong, the Minister representing the Treasurer, for an explanation as to why answers have not been provided to question on notice No. 2006, asked on 9 August 2012.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not have the numbers here, but I believe that there are two overdue questions on notice which Senator Abetz did advise my office about and which have now been tabled. I do not have the question numbers, so if they do not correlate I am sure he can follow it up with me in tomorrow's question time.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

I am willing to accept that they have been tabled—if so, they have been tabled in the last 60 minutes. The question that I asked on 9 August was in relation to industrial disputation during the year 2011-12. I asked: what was the annual cost to the economy and what was the impact on Australia's productivity; and does the Treasurer acknowledge that there has been an increase in industrial action? That question was asked in August 2012. We had all of September, all of October, all of November, all of December, all of January and now nearly all of February for an answer.

Why was the government so reluctant to provide an answer? It is very simple. It is because the Australian Bureau of Statistics is now telling us that, during the year ending June 2012, there were 293,100 working days lost, compared with 159,800 in the previous year. That is a huge surge, a huge increase, in the number of days lost due to industrial disputation. We have also been told that there were 101,700 working days lost due to industrial disputation in the June quarter of 2012 alone—just in that quarter—which is an increase from 35,800 in the March quarter of 2012. That means this is the highest level of working days lost since the June quarter of 2004. No wonder Labor did not want to talk about days lost due to industrial disputation.

Australians have recently seen the ugly face of union militancy and industrial disputation, like those ugly scenes we all saw on our TV screens at the Myer Emporium, where thugs were hitting and beating police horses and policemen; and where members of a trade union had to plead with their trade union bosses to stop the intimidation and thuggish behaviour—by placing an advertisement in the newspaper asking them to desist!—because they had no beef with their employer and they wanted to go to work. They had no problem with their employer. But, in those circumstances, there were still illegal pickets being put in place. That was in Melbourne. In Brisbane, there was the situation with Abigroup and the Queensland Children's Hospital—similarly, an illegal picket, and industrial disputation that went on for eight weeks. We then have the Little Creatures dispute and the City West Water dispute.

In the light of all this, the government cannot come up with an answer as to the number of days lost. But guess what? The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, chances are, has just completed a speech to the Western Australian Branch of the Maritime Union of Australia state conference, which has as its theme 'Celebrating 140 years'—celebrating 140 years of union militancy. The minister for workplace relations is there to open a conference celebrating union militancy. No wonder the government did not want to go anywhere near this answer until it is dragged out of them. The minister should not have opened or attended a conference which deals with and celebrates union militancy.

Unionism in 2013 should be about negotiation. It should be about reasonable discussion, not about thuggish behaviour, such as scaring workers from going to their own workplaces, or attacking police horses. But that is the face of unionism that Mr Shorten is celebrating over in Western Australia today. No wonder the government would not answer this question on notice. They are rightly ashamed of the figures, which highlight the point that we as the coalition have been making—that is, there is a union militancy problem in our country. I thank the minister and I look forward to reading the answer.

Question agreed to.