Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Of course the members of registered organisations should feel that the money they provide to registered organisations through membership fees is fairly used. We on this side of the House acted on that last year when we reviewed the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act and in fact tripled some penalties and increased transparency. We acted last year precisely because we do believe that there needs to be accountability and transparency across registered organisations. But the arguments made on the other side of the House tonight seem to indicate that their solution is the only solution that indicates any level of concern. One would have to question whether their solution is actually a good one. The underlying rationale behind their policy is that registered organisations should be treated just like corporations.

I chair the Economics Committee, and we quite often meet with members—with accountants, financial advisers and all sorts of people who work in various sectors across the country. The most common thing we are told is that when you are dealing with the not-for-profit sector in particular you actually need a completely different set of rules than you do for corporations. In fact, in the Senate committee inquiry into the changes to the registered organisations act last year, the employer organisations put it to the committee that if penalties were increased or criminal penalties imposed they would find it hard to get good people to volunteer to be officers and employees of their own organisations. So the employer organisations that gave evidence to that committee said completely the opposite of what the opposition is saying tonight.

It is difficult to see a rationale as to why different kinds of organisations would be treated exactly the same. We do not treat churches, large charities or people raising funds for local playgrounds in the same way. We have a whole range of rules and regulations that apply to different kinds of organisations, as we should. There simply is not sufficient rationale given for this proposed change. As I said earlier, the employer organisations themselves have said that this would cause some difficulties for them. This, I suspect, is more about politics and opportunism than governance. One has to wonder, if the opposition is so convinced that this is the right way to go, why they did not act on it for so long. Registered organisations are not new; they have been around for quite a while. When we came to government we found quite a few areas that needed to be strengthened, quite a number of flaws in the act, and we moved last year to make amendments to those. If the opposition believed that those amendments were not strong enough—and this was just last year—they had every opportunity to raise it then. Again, that is an indication that it is not so much about governance as about opportunism and politics.

The government introduced extensive amendments to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act last year to fix a number of problems that had been left in the legislation by the previous government and to improve accountability of registered organisations, including unions. Evidence was given to the Senate committee inquiry into our changes to the registered organisations act last year by a range of bodies, including employer organisations, as I said, arguing that if penalties were increased or criminal penalties imposed they would find it difficult to get good people. Nevertheless, we did make amendments and we did increase penalties. We required officers to disclose material personal interests in a matter that relates to the affairs of their organisation or branch. That obligation extends to the officer or a relative of the officer. We required that organisations and branches disclose this information to members—again, an important change that improved the transparency. We required disclosure of payments made to related parties: companies controlled by the organisation or officers of the organisation, their spouses and their relatives; and companies controlled by a related party to the organisation—again, an important change relating to improved transparency. We required new detailed rules about record keeping, including about the organisation's transactions, financial management and audit requirements. We tripled penalties for breaches of the registered organisations act, and we gave the Fair Work Commission far more powers and more resources to investigate breaches, including to compel more people to give information and documents, to require the commission to follow up on breaches after 12 months and to require investigations to be conducted as soon as practicable, as well as powers to deal with the state law enforcement agencies. The changes were endorsed by both unions and employer associations alike through the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council. The drafting of model rules was done through a subcommittee of that council and will be in place by 1 July 2013.

So we have already moved to make substantial improvements in the regulations governing registered organisations. The opposition had an opportunity to engage fully with that process last year. If they felt these issues were of such incredible concern, they also, of course, had an opportunity to address them when they were in government. Bringing them up now, so soon after the major review last year, reeks of opportunism rather than policy. But that is what we have come to expect from this opposition. I think the parliament will give this bill the lack of support it deserves.

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