Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They would donate to us on the basis that we created 2.2 million jobs for their workers in the last government, Parliamentary Secretary. We gave them more opportunities than this government seeks to give them. We hear much from the other side about protection from redundancy at the moment—‘We are going to protect people from redundancy.’ I hope so because there are a lot more Australians now who are going to need it than there were previously.

We also see an IR bill that seeks to reward the trade union movement for their loyal service, and the parliamentary secretary knows it. Good faith bargaining is a step back into the workplace for the unions, to give them control of the workplace again and to increase their membership. It is as pure and simple as that. And it will destroy jobs. Those opposite know that they are moving a terrible economic policy, but it is payback for the $26 million that the unions spent on their own campaign and the $9 million in cash donations to the Labor Party.

We have a problem with perceptions about donations in this country and, in some instances, we have a problem in reality. The member for Braddon referred to the candidate for Beaudesert in the Queensland state election and what she did previously in this place and in other campaigns. He makes a very good point. I notice that last week her former chief adviser gave some of us on this side a free character assessment in the Australian newspaper. He included me, which I take in good humour as it was delivered by the man who formerly advised Pauline Hanson, with the reputation that that brings with it. We do have a problem with donations, but this bill is a cop-out because it seeks to benefit those on the other side at our expense and because, rather than having a holistic approach to reform, it is limited to issues that benefit the Labor Party.

I will finish on this note: some of those on the other side—not so much the parliamentary secretary at the table, because he is above this sort of behaviour—seek to question the motives of members on this side of the House when we raise issues on this bill. They say we do it because we benefit from the current system and that it is all a stitch-up—and I noticed the member for Banks attacking Senator Fielding earlier, which I thought was an interesting approach to diplomacy given that the Labor Party are trying to get him to agree to bills this week. If the Labor Party want to raise inappropriate behaviour with regard to donations, we are happy to step back through the absolute scandal and disgrace that was Centenary House and the $4 million in above-market rents from which those on the other side benefited and which was the subject of two royal commissions. They were fleecing Australian taxpayers through a dodgy deal by—you guessed it—the very minister responsible for these reforms.

If the Labor Party—though not, as I said, the parliamentary secretary at the table—want to come into this House and bully and threaten over unions and workplace relations, as they generally do, they can go right ahead. We are more than happy to step back through the $4 million that you people fleeced from Australian taxpayers with the rort over Centenary House, that nondescript piece of real estate in Barton that had a higher rental value than real estate in Manhattan. Can you imagine the rent in Barton in the ACT being the same as that in Manhattan? It is quite extraordinary. Hong Kong, Seoul, Washington, Geneva, Barton—the names just roll off the tongue, don’t they? We are not going to sit here and listen to the high priests of hypocrisy on the other side telling us that we are all about trying to benefit from donations and that is why we are standing in the way of reform. We agree that the donation system needs reform because it is sick and broken, but we want holistic reform, not the piecemeal approach that those on the other side seek to implement for their own electoral benefit.

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