Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

He’s a cute little bloke, isn’t he! Both Joe and Kevin worked on the Canning Vale polling booth at one of my elections. And by the way, Joe McDonald wouldn’t pay a bet he had with me; he still owes me $20.

In May 2007, Joe McDonald made his position about the ABCC pretty clear:

I live for the day when (the ABCC staff) are all working at Hungry Jack's or Fast Eddy's or Kentucky Fried Chicken. That is what's waiting for them. They're all ex-policemen and they can go and do whatever ex-coppers do. I'd suggest that John Lloyd and his mates will be unemployed before I will be.

I wonder if he got a wink and a nod from the minister to be able to say that. Kevin Reynolds likened the ABCC to the Gestapo, and Dean Mighell said the creation of the ABCC was a stunt by the coalition government. They will all be jumping with joy now when this legislation goes through the House—if it does. In April of this year, the ABCC reported intimidation and cost blowouts increasing. Shouldn’t this be all the more reason for its retention? In Western Australia, the Director of the Master Builders Association made the point that if $2 billion in state government infrastructure projects were blown out by just 5 per cent because of union antics, this would waste $100 million of taxpayers’ money. I do not think our state can afford to waste this sort of money when we are all screaming for more infrastructure and essential services like policemen, teachers and nurses.

An April editorial in theAustralian hit the nail on the head, when it said:

Julia Gillard says the ABCC will be replaced in January with a new unit to watch the industry. Good, but not good enough. The ABCC and the powers it possesses should stay.

I know those on the other side like watching. With regard to the coercive powers in the legislation, basically the government wants to be able to compel at convenience. Coercive interrogation powers are able to be switched off on the order of the independent assessor. So we know that one site could have powers initiated on them and then, at a whim, they could be switched off again. It is one site on and one site off. It will be very interesting to see how this ever stacks up in law. While the government gives the appearance that they are not completely caving in to the unions by retaining the so-called coercive interrogation powers, it is really nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that the powers are so bogged down in red tape that they will rarely be used. It is important to remember that these powers exist for a reason. Powers available under the current laws to compel witnesses to give evidence are needed to provide protection to those people who want to give evidence to the ABCC without the fear of payback or retribution by the union for having done so—and it was very clearly pointed out by the member for Warringah in his speech why coercive powers are needed. In fact, the ABCC Commissioner, Mr Lloyd, recently said that he had no reservations about his power to use coercive powers because people preferred that in order to give testimony rather than feel the wrath of the union should they be seen to be cooperating. So of course they would love to give evidence. When it was voluntary before and there was a show of hands and they could be identified, we knew that they were penalised for doing so.

Existing powers are capable of being used against everyone in the sector—employees and employers. Even Justice Wilcox, who was asked by Minister Gillard to report on the powers of the ABCC, recognised that the investigative powers are integral to ensuring that law and order is maintained in the construction sector. These powers would not be necessary if the sector had the same culture and history as normal, everyday workplaces. The truth is that construction is a special case. Labor has no real intentions of creating a tough cop overseer or being tough on the construction unions. The Deputy Prime Minister said:

A future Rudd Labor Government will not tolerate intimidation or violence by any party in the building and construction industry. The practices of the past are not part of Labor’s future for industrial relations.

Labor promised it would maintain the existing ABCC arrangements until February 2010, but we should not be surprised that this government says one thing and does another. It is racking up quite a long list of backflips on commitments. While the minister talks tough, the reality is that the unions have already won this debate as the proposed act reduces the penalties for unlawful action and gives a green light for a return to the bad old days.

Claims that the ABCC has affected occupational health and safety levels are also misguided. ABCC Commissioner John Lloyd has stated:

The ABCC is committed to do all it can to improve the industry’s poor occupational health and safety record and to support those specifically charged with this task …

As the member for Mayo said in his contribution to this House, it is the state governments who actually administer this, and where were the state Labor governments when occupational health and safety was an issue? The truth is that the independent building industry police are in real danger of losing their powers, losing their independence and being nothing more than a token body with no ability to stop a return to lawlessness and intimidation on the building sites of Australia.

See this speech in context