Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I seconded the motion, supporting the member for Farrer, that the Building Code 2013 dated 25 January 2013 made under the Fair Work (Building Industry) Act 2012 and presented to the House on 6 February 2013 be disallowed. I have just listened to the diatribe from the minister who does not seem to understand what productivity is all about. Productivity is about getting the government out of the way of industry. What this minister wants to support is thuggery, union involvement to the benefit of the union movement and not to the workers and not to the industry. This is about the union movement, not actually the workers. It is not about protecting workers rights or opportunities. It is about union interference.

This minister has form as did his predecessor, Mr Howes. They have stood up for what they claim to be the union members but in actual fact they have done very little to support their union members. In fact, not so long ago corruption was being discussed and people were taking money out of the union movement for personal benefit. I clearly remember Paul Howes saying, 'We should stamp this out and we should recover the money.' That did not seem to reach down to previous union people in the AWU who took money out of the union movement. This includes the allegations against the Prime Minister and her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, and Ralph Blewitt. No recovery actions on that money, and that involved the building industry standing over a company in Western Australia.

In fact there are many aspects of the thuggery that have continued under these new regulations put forward by the minister, including the Grocon dispute, the Queensland Children's Hospital dispute, the Little Creatures dispute and the City West Water Melbourne dispute. I understand the corruption in the building industry because prior to coming to this place I was an advocate for the Crown in the Department of Fair Trading in New South Wales, in the building services corporation, helping to clean up the corruption and thuggery revealed by the Giles royal commission. I actually understand what the member for Farrer is objecting to. The only reason the minister and the government want to oppose this disallowance is because they want to see a continuation of union thuggery, union involvement: 'unions are supreme'—hello, you're waving to me across the box, are you?

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