Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, it is not surprising that those opposite would take a point of order the second I start talking about their ‘no ticket, no start’ ambitions. I have constantly been working my way through the various stages of the bill. I am surprised the member for Gorton has not realised that I have, in fact, constantly been dealing with the way in which the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner and the Federal Safety Commissioner will be operating and the way in which the administrative arrangements will ensure a better deal for the construction industry and the workers within it. I am just surprised that the member for Gorton should take that point of order. It can only be because he is so concerned about the point I make—that the Australian Labor Party’s clear ambition is very simple: no ticket, no start. Unless you are a member of a union, you will not get a start in a building and construction workplace anywhere around Australia.

A painting contractor that I was talking to the other day said that when he walks into a building workplace in Brisbane he will find the union official standing at the gate saying: ‘You’re a painting contractor. You can’t come in here unless you’ve got the union ticket.’ The painting contractor says: ‘Buzz off, mate. I know exactly what my rights are and I’m coming to do a job.’ This is a bloke who has a business which he and his brother started 10 years ago, and he now has 10 people working for him—10 extra mortgages being paid in Australia—and we have a union official standing at the gate saying, ‘No ticket, no start,’ regardless of how safely this man may operate in the workplace and no matter how professional and capable he is. He is being judged only through the prism of his union membership and his union membership alone.

The Australian Labor Party should stand condemned for the fact that they put occupational safety second to union membership; they put occupational safety second to whether or not the unions are actually running it. The occupational safety of workers is down the list if there is not a union person involved in this. If the Labor Party have their way, for Kevin Reynolds and people like him—people who have gone to 10 Western Australian construction companies and demanded they hand over $397,935.48 to the CFMEU for casual union tickets—it would not just be ‘no ticket, no start’; even if you do not want a ticket, you would have to pay to keep the unions away. That is the sort of vision that the Australian Labor Party have for Australia. They should stand condemned. I think you will find that big and small businesses and their employees around Australia are genuinely concerned about the way the Labor Party want to run Australia. (Time expired)

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