Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In a perfect world, we would not be debating this bill. In fact, even in a reasonable world, we would not be debating this bill. There would no need for the parliament to even be considering it, because this bill is about dealing with a procession of instances of unlawful behaviour, coercive behaviour and bullying in the workplace, and reasonable individuals do not engage in that.

We just heard the member opposite, the member for Scullin, say that this bill, the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013, will hurt families. Let me just say at the outset that I see this bill as being fundamentally important to everybody involved in the construction industry, whether they be workers on the work site, subcontractors, head contractors or the families of all of those who are employed or are employing others in relation to the contracts and also the suppliers, because all of their livelihoods, all of their experiences, are tied up in what happens in and at the workplace. Unfortunately, the actions of a minority impact negatively on many people who are not even on the workforces or in the workplaces that we are talking about.

What is the real purpose of this bill? Why is it being debated in this chamber today? It only really has one purpose, and that is to deliver future infrastructure projects on time and within budget. Let me say that again: the purpose of the bill is to deliver future infrastructure, which we all on both sides of this House acknowledge is crucial to the productivity of our nation, on time and on budget. That is why the very name of this bill is the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill. Improving productivity is something we must do. It is not just nice to have; it is an absolute necessity in this country because our competitiveness is slipping away. Every time there is a delay in a construction there is a massive cost. The cost starts with the individual families, and it runs through to the subcontractors, to the contractors and then of course to the people building the projects, whether they are in the private sector or in the public sector.

Let us go back to where this started—the Cole royal commission. With all of its powers, the Cole royal commission can hardly be regarded as anything other than a judicial body which had to find evidentiary material to support its findings. It has been said before in this debate, but let us repeat it, that the commission ' s final report, delivered in 2003, found widespread disregard of laws and courts, threatening and intimidatory conduct and the underpayment of employees ' entitlements. It catalogued a large number and variety of misbehaviours by unions.

Mr Bandt interjecting —

Let me clarify that for the Deputy Leader of the Greens. How balanced was that? It did not just bash unions—it did not say anything about that. It referred to the rights of employees and to their pay and conditions not being properly upheld. It also reported widespread disregard for laws and the courts and threatening and intimidatory behaviour. I am glad the member for Melbourne is in here, because we will go to a couple of these issues, and in his address he might like to tell us his view on this particular behaviour. The Cole report noted that the short-term interests of construction companies led to their acceding to union demands which were not in the national economic interest and, quite frankly, you would not have thought in their own interests either, other than that it was expedient to pay up front to get a project finished. The Cole royal commission report concluded that 'quick fix solutions driven by commercial expediencies supplement insistence on legal rights, adherence to ethical and legal norms and the pursuit of legal remedies'. We are talking here about operating outside the law. In any other aspect of society we just would not accept that. There would not be a debate; we would all be as one. Ask yourself: why is that so? That was in 2003 under the coalition government.

So what is this intimidating practice? Here is an example, legal in itself, but its ramifications and its purpose are clear. It is quite legal for a union representative to turn up at a workplace and ask for a two-hour union meeting. They call out the workers on a large construction site. The first ones who go out for two hours, who leave the site, are perhaps the form workers who set the concrete. What does that do to the work site? It effectively stops the work. At the end of that two-hour meeting you might call out the concreters—that stops work again—or the carpenters, and on it rolls in a systematic attempt to blackmail the contractors into changing their behaviour. Here is the sad reality: it does not necessarily apply to and is not aimed at one site.

A case was put to me just today where a bunch of union officials came from interstate on one day, targeted four or five major sites and conducted this behaviour in what could only be seen as an intimidatory way. But this does more than that. They are looking for an unspoken outcome of getting a settlement somewhere else. So all the workers and their families are embroiled in something they are not even aware of, are not party to, but it impacts upon their lives. I ask the member for Melbourne whether he condones that behaviour, whether he sees that as positive or as something that he and his party should not support.

Those intimidatory practices go straight to bullying as well and not just saying the odd word here or there but really vicious behaviour in the workplace. There are examples of this being used in Victoria and in South Australia in recent times. The old term ' scabs ' is well known. The CFMEU grossly bullies nonmembers by posting and labelling them as such—it would not be tolerated by the member for Melbourne, so why should it be tolerated in these forms?—referring to people in that way in absolute defiance of the Fair Work Act and Supreme Court orders stating they must end their protest. What about intimidation in Geelong, saying that you would cut people ' s throats? Try doing that in any workplace and see how you go. For some reason, we are supposed to accept intimidatory practice as part and parcel of the cutthroat, dare I say, construction industry—or being told, ' You ' re dead! ' Shoving, kicking and punching motor vehicles: how much more intimidatory can you get? Are we accepting these practices, or are we saying they have no place in a modern society, that we will enact laws to prevent them from happening? What about the Colombian neckties which, I am told, were applied in Werribee—in other words, hanging people? Again, I ask the member for Melbourne, when you address this place today—

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