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

good health and safety standards and good conditions at work. There are many who believe that, as a result of the culture of fear and intimidation that occurred as a result of the ABCC, workers could not feel they could voice their concerns about their workplace. They did not feel that they could raise health and safety issues or their entitlements, that under the ABCC if they did raise these issues or took action to address these issues they would be compulsorily interrogated and not be provided the appropriate protections and safeguards, including the fundamental right to legal representation. So it is no wonder that there are many that believe that there were reduced safety standards on building sites, increased injury rates and reduced access to employee advocates and unions for workers. And, as a result of the climate of fear and intimidation, there are many who felt they could no longer put their tools down to ensure that safety was there on the worksite. One particular story was related to me about how this affected a construction site. There was a site on which water supplies were turned off by management despite the fact that temperatures were topping about 45 degrees on some days. When water supplies were turned on again, black sludge then flowed from the taps, so workers determined that the lack of water constituted a significant safety risk and walked off the job until water supplies were fixed. However, some months later, the workers who walked off the job, as well as their friends and colleagues at the construction site, were subject to what they felt was threatening and unwarranted interrogation to determine whether a safety risk was sufficiently immediate to warrant walking off the job. I am not sure about you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think black sludge and no access to water are an evident safety risk, and it is no wonder that in this example—and I am sure there are many others—workers felt that they were unfairly targeted by the ABCC.

It seems that with the previous government there was an obsession with targeting workers, an obsession with reducing their pay and conditions, an obsession with ensuring that people did not get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. It has been this Labor government that has taken action to create Fair Work Australia, to restore the safety net that was destroyed by the previous government. On that point, I commend the motion to the House.

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