Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of an issue that should make all Australians furious because Australians work hard, they pay their taxes and, when they pay their taxes, they expect that their taxpayer money will go to developing things like roads and hospitals and infrastructure, that it won't go to lining the pockets of criminals, yet that's exactly what has happened in Victoria and Labor is complicit. Today, Victoria's most controversial gangland-linked labour hire firm, Women in Construction, was finally given the boot, with seven days to get off the North East Link project. Now think about that name, Women in Construction. It is not a coincidence that it is also the name of the Labor program that was backed by the CFMEU. It is now also the name of a construction company that hires only women, but it's a company owned by a serial domestic violence offender, Luke Ellery, and it's managed by a fellow named Wayne Junior Carter, a former CFMEU official with links to bikie gangs who's been jailed for drug trafficking and accused of family violence. He was then replaced—surprise surprise—by another CFMEU official with links to assault and who's also been accused of domestic violence.

Women in Construction is the name of these blokes' company—outrageous. How do we know this? We know it because of public scrutiny. We know it because of investigative journalism. But how many more cases are out there? How many more operators with criminal links are there? We don't know because those opposite are denying the Senate an opportunity for inquiry into this very issue. Labor and the Greens cannot claim to be champions of women and workers and people of integrity while they are refusing to shine a light on this. It is abhorrent. If you do not support the inquiry that is facing the Senate today, well, you are complicit in this corruption. The coalition is prepared to ask the questions. Why won't Labor? Why won't the Greens? Because their donations would dry up if they did.