Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak against the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and associated bill. This legislation will see the return of the draconian Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC, as it is also commonly referred to, is based on flawed modelling which proposes powers that are extreme and unnecessary and which compromise civil liberties. The main point I wish to make today is a simple one—that the construction industry should be regulated by the same general laws that apply to everybody else in the federal system. A worker is a worker and should be treated the same regardless of where they work.

Let me expand. This bill seeks to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. It was created, as we have been told, in 2005 to investigate breaches of and to enforce federal industrial law. But all we hear from the government is that it is to investigate criminal activity. This is not the purpose of the industrial relations act.

If re-established, these coercive powers would be used to compel ordinary workers to attend secret meetings, deny them legal representation and threaten them with imprisonment just to get them to answer questions about industrial matters. These are people who have not committed a crime. They are simply being made to go to a meeting, possibly against their will. These powers are excessive, undemocratic and wrong. The coercive powers in this legislation are something that is not applied to any other workers in the federal system. There is no good reason why workers in the construction industry should be treated differently from those in other industries. As a fundamental principle—a fundamental matter of fairness—the starting point for us as law-makers is to make sure that every Australian employee and employer is subject to the same national industrial laws. Whether they are cleaners, work in construction or work here at Parliament House, all workers deserve a fair work system.

These coercive powers are used typically not in matters of industrial relations but in matters of national security, of fraud, of serious corruption or of public safety or in criminal matters, not in industrial matters. Why are we trying to apply to the industrial arena laws that are usually kept for the most grievous of situations in our community—for example, national security? It should also be kept in mind that these powers would be used to interrogate a person not under suspicion of a crime but who may simply be able to assist in an investigation: 'We are going to make you come and talk about what is going on in your workplace.' That is not how any country, let alone a democratic country, should treat its people and its workers. Coercive powers in the industrial arena contradict this value and are therefore undemocratic.

These powers should be kept out of the industrial arena to ensure that the exercise of industrial rights such as the right to associate, the right to organise and the right to take collective action is not tainted with the quasi-criminal overtones that are generally talked about when it comes to these matters. If these bills are approved, these forms of powers will continue to exist. For those who refuse to comply with them there will be a penalty of up to six months for refusing to go and talk about what is happening in your workplace. This directly contradicts another part of our democracy, the right to organise and the right to freedom of association. In this chamber we are creating a contradiction within our democratic society. If you are allowed to democratically organise and get together then you should not be compelled to attend the meetings that the proposed legislation sets out.

Another myth is that these new laws would tackle criminal behaviour. The government is arguing that there is a need to introduce these laws because of allegations of widespread violence and threats, criminal damage to property and so on and so forth. The original ABCC did not deal and has never dealt with criminal conduct. It was concerned purely and simply with industrial behaviour. Why? Because criminal conduct is not its responsibility. Industrial law deals with your rights at work; it talks about workplace organisation. Criminal law is a separate matter and is something that is quite often dealt with in our state jurisdictions. The labour movement—the Labor side of this chamber as well as the labour movement in the community—has always accepted that criminal matters must be dealt with under criminal law. Regardless of whether it is in a workplace, a home or the community, if we suspect that a crime has occurred it should be dealt with under crimes legislation. References to criminality in this debate serve only to distract and to suggest that a group of hardworking Australians need to be treated differently. The construction industry should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

The ABCC previously led to a rise in deaths and injuries in the workplace, yet those opposite do not wish to talk about that. During the period of the most aggressive activities by the ABCC, in the last years of the Howard government, workplace fatalities in the construction industry peaked at 48 deaths in 2006 and 51 deaths in 2007, making them the worst two years for construction deaths in a decade. Is that the purpose of reintroducing this bill? What happens when you start to attack unions and workers' rights to organise? What happens when you turn the focus away from workplace safety to being about whether you are at a union meeting? Safety slips. We cannot afford for that to happen. Those are the facts. There was a peak in deaths during the period of the ABCC, so it has been shown not to deliver safe workplaces. By contrast, following the abolition of the ABCC in 2012, 30 deaths were reported, the lowest number in the past 10 years. Why was that? Because workers felt that they could organise again. They could speak up about safety issues.

Being able to organise in the workplace is a democratic right. It is a principle of freedom of association. I understand that the government has a problem with the concept of freedom of association, but we are a country that was founded on the right to organise. I mentioned in my maiden speech the Chewton monster meeting of 1851, in which 15,000 workers gathered in the small town of Chewton protesting over the mining licence. They came together, saying, 'We join here together in union.' This country was founded on that basic principle that we can stand together and organise and talk freely and openly without threat of being pulled into a secret meeting.

The ABCC breaches international human rights obligations. The Australian government, as much as it tries to pretend otherwise, is subject to international obligations which state that it must allow and encourage the freedom of association and the right to organise: the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention of 1947, the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention of 1949 and the Labour Inspection Convention of 1947.

We have longstanding traditions in this country. The reintroduction of the ABCC takes away those rights. We are simply saying that by reintroducing the ABCC, if this act is passed by parliament, workers in the construction industry will be treated differently. They will not have the same rights as the rest of us. That is the problem with these proposed laws. They fly in the face of the UN and its accepted principles around the world. They go against the grain of what this country was founded on, which is the right to organise, the right of freedom of association and the right to democracy.

This bill singles out workers and states that they will be treated differently from those in other industries. This bill is undemocratic; it strikes at the heart of our democracy. The existence of the ABCC during the Howard years was a shameful stain on Australia's proud reputation as a country that respects the rights of its unions and workers. The building and construction industry employs over a million hardworking men and women in Australia. They make a massive contribution to our economy, and they deserve to be treated in exactly the same way as the rest of us.

I will finish my contribution today by making a few comments about what this legislation means to Bendigo. The construction industry does not need extra red tape. The construction industry wants to be able to get on with the job. If there is a safety breach at a workplace, the workers there should be able to gather without the threat of the powers in this legislation being called on. How we save people's lives is by making sure that we have workers who are willing to stand up and speak on their safety issues. In Bendigo, this legislation is more red tape being introduced by a government that is ideologically driven. It is more red tape designed to stop workers from being able to gather—and for what purpose? As I stated earlier, these proposed laws seek to reintroduce coercive powers, and these powers seek to treat workers in this industry differently.

We have also heard from the government that this legislation is necessary because of criminal behaviour in the construction industry. Again, if there is criminal behaviour it should be investigated under the Crimes Act, not under the industrial relations act. They are two separate things. Talking about criminality serves one purpose, and that is to demonise an entire workforce. We have always agreed that if it is a criminal matter, whether it be in the workplace, whether it be in the home or whether it be in the community, it should be investigated under the appropriate section of the act. By creating the ABCC, we are confusing that issue. One part of the ABCC which talks about industrial law contradicts another law, and that is the right and the opportunity to organise collectively.

So, please, when considering this bill, remember the precedent that we are reintroducing. We are reintroducing an undemocratic system. We are reintroducing a situation that says to a group of workers, 'You are different.' This is not the kind of country, it is not the kind of Australia, that we were founded on. It is not the kind of country or the kinds of workplaces that we want to have in the future.

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