Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for his question. As the member for Bonner would well recognise there has been an enormous amount of communication and correspondence with members in Queensland, particularly the member for Bonner, from many constituents in Queensland who are extremely concerned at the way the Beattie Labor government is trampling on their democratic rights in Queensland—from voters and constituents in the community through to people involved in local councils and the Queensland Local Government Association.

I think all Australians would have a great deal of sympathy, today, with Queenslanders when they see how the democratic processes in Queensland have been trampled on. No Australian would condone the value that has been destroyed in the political freedoms and democracy in Queensland, where the Queensland Labor government is forcing amalgamations on local government authorities across Queensland. We watched Premier Beattie arrogantly mouthing off his government’s position on television last night and this morning. He is acting like an emperor in the Ming dynasty, where there is only one person that counts, and that is him. He is going to lord it over every single individual Queenslander.

Of course, we have not heard boo from the leader of the Labor Party here in Canberra, who has a bit of form on this issue. Actually, he is like a mandarin in the imperial court kowtowing to Premier Beattie in Queensland. We all remember that when the current Leader of the Opposition was a senior bureaucrat in the Goss Labor government in Queensland they did exactly the same thing. There were amalgamations with no consultation with the people that were being affected. There was no consultation at all and no referendum. That happened back then, and he has form now. But now he is trying to echo the concern that the coalition government is expressing, by giving the people of Queensland the opportunity to have a say through a plebiscite or referendum conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission.

That is a bit of a telling line about the attitude of the Australian Labor Party. At the end of the day, all they are doing is kowtowing to the union movement in Queensland. It is outrageous that, in the democracy that we have in Australia, the Premier of Queensland has today introduced legislation that will give him the power to instantly dismiss any council major or councillor who seeks the views of the people they represent. What a horrible thought—to seek the views from the people! They will sack anyone who dares to exercise that political freedom of speech. That is Stalinism, Queensland Labor style, in 2007. It is just outrageous and should be condemned by every Australian. Labor are effectively making political prisoners out of every mayor and every councillor in Queensland by threatening to charge them and to put them in jail if they dare seek the views of the people they represent.

So what is driving this? Where the councils are being amalgamated forcibly by the Queensland Labor government, they are being driven by the union bosses of the Labor Party in Queensland. If you drill down into this, you see that when this legislation goes through there will be transition committees established in every local government area across Queensland to manage the transition to the new authorities and mandated to be on those committees are three union delegates in every local government area. In every local government area, there will be three union delegates on those committees. There will not be three representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the CWA, the National Farmers Federation or AgForce in Queensland, but it is mandated that there will be three union delegates on every committee. Premier Beattie not only wants to exercise these jackboot tactics over councils across Queensland but also wants to put unions into these committees.

The unions will decide who the CEOs of the new councils will be. The unions will decide who runs the Labor Party in the local area. The unions will decide who runs the Labor Party in Brisbane. The unions will decide who will be the Premier in Queensland. The unions decide who will lead the Labor Party down here and who sits on the frontbench down here. All Australians need to understand very clearly that not only can the Labor Party not be trusted to manage money but also you can guarantee that the Labor Party will be the patsies of the union movement. The unions control the government in Queensland and, if there were ever a Labor government elected here in Canberra, the unions would control them.

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