Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Who knows? Who would know why? But why would a government allow that to happen? We know that the Greens are running the agenda at the moment, but not only will this lead to the Greens running the agenda; it also looks like the ACTU will be fully back in influence as well. What will that mean for the grassroots union members—those who are worried about their jobs, worried about the impact of the carbon tax? Once again, they will be shut out. Their voices will not be heard and that is a real worry.

As I have said before, having these three ACTU members on the board means that defence and veteran representation on the board is less than it should be. Currently the ACTU is able to nominate more directors than the Chief of the Defence Force. The defence and veteran community believes that military representation on the CSC board should be at least equal to that of the ACTU or, alternatively, that the military should continue to have its own independent board. I think that is fair. Given what our defence personnel do so magnificently in defending Australia, the fact that we will not allow them to have as much control or more over their hard-earned superannuation as the ACTU is an indictment of this government.

In summary, I have three serious concerns with this governance bill. The special provisions for ACTU representation on the board should be changed. The provisions for defence and veteran representation on the board should be changed so that that community has greater representation. The minister should be allowed to dismiss an ACTU nominated director. He should not have to go begging, cap in hand, to the head of the ACTU saying, 'Please, we think there is a problem with this nominated director so could you remove him?' The minister elected to this parliament having to go cap in hand to Jeff Lawrence to get someone removed is an absolute indictment of this bill. The last thing which needs to be changed is that the ACTU should not be in a position, because their numbers allow them to decide whether or not there will be a quorum, to decide whether a meeting goes ahead or not. Whoever drafted this bill should have taken that into consideration as well.

As someone who worked in the Public Service, as someone who provided money into a superannuation scheme, and it is still there, I find particularly worrying the direction in which the government is headed in putting together the board which will ultimately have the say over where all the money of our defence personnel and our public servants will be invested and how it will be managed. The fact that the ACTU is given such a prominent position on this board, especially ahead of the minister and people elected to this parliament, is of major concern.

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