Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

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Severe cases could lead the regulator to ask the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to consider charges.

The ACTU said the arrangements reported at the meat industry fund were "highly unusual"—

'Highly unusual'! Isn't that interesting. The meat workers, 30,000 of them, lost $30 million, and it is 'highly unusual'—

but would be stamped out under the new governance regime.

But it will not be. The important thing we have to see here is that there seems to be one rule for people who are engaged in industry funds with trade union appointees and another rule for people engaged in retail funds. I think that the need to have far greater scrutiny of trade unions is starting to manifest itself. The Labor Party and the government like to tell us that the HSU is a single rotten apple in the barrel. But it is not. We have seen what has gone on with the HSU because of the FWA report. We have seen what has happened with Mr Wally Curran and the meatworkers union, and for this we are grateful to some journalists who are usually attacked by the Australian Labor Party and the government because they write for the Australian. And then there were the actions, which were never pursued either, of Mr Bruce Wilson of the AWU. So the suggestion that the HSU is a single rotten apple in the barrel is just not true. There are clearly systemic problems, and we are going to have to have far more penetrating legislation to try to clean up the mess.

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