Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to second this motion. I would like to thank the member for Wakefield for bringing it to the House tonight. This motion rightly points out that the Howard government's Australian Building and Construction Commission has unfairly targeted building and construction unions and their individual workers. It is clear from the comparison of the total number of successful prosecutions made by the ABCC. We have five for employers—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

The member for Mayo has just walked in. I am sure he was critical, just as he was with Work Choices, in the back room, in coming up with the best plan about how to target unions and their rank and file members—because we know he has some runs on the board there. However, we saw five successful prosecutions of employer groups and 86 of employee organisations. The previous speaker suggested—and I find it very hard to believe—that there were no other issues, that employers in the building and construction industry never do anything wrong; they never have issues where they underpay their workers or do not hold high health and safety standards. Those numbers I think clearly state that this organisation was there to target unions and their rank and file members. This is a very important point because we do need to make sure both employees and employers are held accountable. It is important that employers do uphold health and safety standards as well as their employees and ensure that there are decent conditions for workers on building sites and workplaces right around this country.

It is not surprising that this was created by the Howard government, because they created so many things, including their first wave of industrial relations changes in 1998 and then their second wave, through Work Choices, where they got a little giddy with their Senate majority and decided to really rip away the wages and conditions of ordinary Australians that deserved—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

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