Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I support the Labor Party's position and oppose the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and associated bill before the House, and I hope that those opposite will see sense in relation to the legislation. After I was elected in 2007, my brother Regan asked me what I saw about Canberra that was surprising to me. Having been a Labor Party member for nearly a quarter of a century before I was elected to this place, I should not have been surprised when I discovered after I was first elected just how right wing and anti-union the coalition always is when it comes to industrial relations. I heard the speeches of those opposite who were there when we brought forward the legislation to abolish Work Choices. Again and again, they—including the current Prime Minister—got up and said they supported Work Choices and that there were good things about it, implying that the people of Australia had really got it wrong.

I am standing here today speaking for the third time in this place on legislation in relation to the building and construction industry and this very topic. I spoke first on this topic on 13 August 2009 and again on 15 February 2012. At the risk of repeating myself, I say that we should have one law for all. I believe that the law should treat everyone equally, whether they live in Fremantle or Fitzroy, Dubbo or Darwin, Townsville or Tweed Heads. It does not matter what you do for a living or where you go to work; everyone is entitled to fairness in the workplace.

Before I was elected to this place I ran a multimillion-dollar business that I established with my partners. We built it up over the years. I was an employer. My financial security was on the line each and every day. I learnt, as did my business partners, that cooperation, not confrontation, in the workplace is always best. As the business grew, we needed that cooperation.

What we see in the legislation before the chamber today is not cooperation but confrontation. When I made my second speech on legislation of this type I predicted that a returned coalition government would return to the Australian Building and Construction Commission or some body like it and that it would do away with Fair Work Australia and the division that we were about to establish. If ever there was an occasion on which I wish I had been wrong, it was that occasion, but here we are today debating legislation that will bring back the ABCC. The tragedy of all of this is that this legislation should be so offensive to those opposite who call themselves liberals, because this legislation is an offence against civil liberties and it really has nothing to do with what John Stuart Mill talked about in relation to liberalism. Those opposite have the temerity to call themselves liberals when in fact this legislation is all about not freedom but taking away people's rights.

Historically, the Australian population have not trusted the coalition when it comes to a fair go in the workplace. This legislation is about making sure that workplaces are unfair. It is not about the simplicity of bringing things back to the sensible centre. This legislation shows that the people's mistrust of the coalition is not misplaced.

The Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, the Cole commission, was the brainchild of the now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and the then Prime Minister, John Howard. It afforded extraordinary powers that favoured big business, not workers. It was designed for one purpose: to ensure that workers and their representatives, the trade unions, would be prosecuted and persecuted.

In 2009 the former federal Labor government introduced the Building and Construction Industry Improvement (Amendment) Transition to Fair Work Bill 2009 to equalise the balance in the field of construction and on building sites around the country. Our position in this regard has been consistent. We took this to the people in 2007. We took it to them again in 2010, because our legislation had been blocked in parliament in our first term; we could not get the legislation through. We wanted a fairer, more balanced framework for industrial relations. Demonising construction employees and their representatives, the trade unions, is not the way to go.

The unions have consistently opposed the ABCC. We have seen that. We have heard people like Dave Noonan, National Secretary of CFMEU Construction and General Division, speak about the parliament having the capacity to end the ABCC and restore rights to workers. It is important that we look at the history of this and see its background. This is not just political; it is personal to me, because I have had friends who have been on the receiving end of the pernicious and punishing ABCC.

It is not that long ago that the ABCC admitted that it had stepped outside its powers and illegally interrogated about 203 people. That is final proof that the ABCC is a rogue organisation, as Dave Noonan has said. The stress of arbitrary interrogation and its impact on the lives of people who worked in this industry and on their families cannot be underestimated.

Construction is important. We saw how important it is during the global financial crisis, when we invested massively in construction in schools and in community infrastructure such as roads, rail and ports. We kept workers on the job, making sure that we kept the stimulus going and that economic development in this country did not abate. Sadly, those opposite would not support the construction industry in this way.

The ABCC treated employees and representatives of the employees as if they were criminals or even terror suspects. The Prime Minister was one of the architects of that. John Howard got his good mate Commissioner Cole to investigate. The Cole commission lasted 18 months and cost $66 million of taxpayers' funds, but there was not a single criminal conviction. It was an exorbitantly expensive and calculated political stunt. There were 392 instances of alleged, so-called, criminal behaviour, but they could not get one conviction. The Cole commission was never bipartisan. It was never a genuine royal commission; it was set up for a purpose.

The Cole commission was partisan, and the ABCC that that mob opposite are going to bring back will be just as partisan. We made sure through our amendments to the Fair Work Act that workers get a fair go. We put in a lot of protection in relation to coercive powers, such as the capacity to turn them off. We made sure that people have the right to legal representation. We made sure that legal professional privilege is there. We made sure there is videotaping. We made sure that safeguards were undertaken as recommended by His Honour Murray Wilcox. We listened to his recommendations and we implemented them. It was not always easy. Some of our brethren in the trade union movement did not like it. We believe that what we did was the right thing, following what Murray Wilcox had to say on these matters.

I believe that all workers are entitled to fairness and good working conditions in the workplace and that they should be able to safely return to their loved ones at the end of the day. Construction site workers are entitled, like every other worker—a schoolteacher, a social worker, a hairdresser or anyone who works in retail—to that same benefit. But this legislation takes away rights and subjects those employees and their representatives to potential interrogation and prosecution of the worst kind—and the present Prime Minister made no bones about it. I was here last year when he said in his budget-in-reply speech that he was going to bring the ABCC back. But I, along with my Labor colleagues, campaigned on these types of issues. The public in my electorate knew exactly what my position was in relation to this. I had spoken in parliament on it a number of times. I will stand up for what I believe in. We on our side will make sure that there is cooperation in the workplace.

The legislation before the chamber creates an ABCC on steroids. This legislation creates powers that go way beyond the previous powers of the ABCC and include picketing, offshore construction and the transport and supply of goods to building sites. This new revived ABCC will become the ultimate workplace bully. Its powers are excessive and undemocratic. They are illiberal to say the least. It is really a tragedy that a party which calls itself the 'Liberal Party' should be the very one which brings such legislation before this chamber today.

Historically, the ABCC had extreme coercive powers. They could force the average worker to participate, without legal representation, in covert interviews and make the very real threat of imprisonment should they refuse to cooperate. Under the new ABCC, here is a scenario that could be the reality for anyone. You could be outside walking—you could be going shopping, going to work or walking the dog—and happen to pass a construction site. It just so happens during that split second that you see an incident on the construction site. Subsequently, someone from the ABCC turns up and says, 'We want to have you in for an interview.' Under its extraordinary power, absurd power, obscene power, you could be detained for questioning. You could be prevented from telling anyone, even your wife, your partner, your husband—I mean anyone—what you did. You do not have the right to legal representation, and you have the real possibility, the threat, of being jailed if you do not cooperate. This is authoritarian and draconian legislation at its worst. It is jackboot, Bjelke-Petersen type legislation—that is what it is. It is absurd to think that this legislation is bringing it back to the sensible centre.

The new ABCC on steroids will have the power to ban pickets and to include a reverse onus, which means that, to escape the maximum penalty of $34,000, people will have to prove that they were not participating in, or motivated by, industrial action. This all sounds great, but what if one of the brothers or sisters or the children of any one of those opposite happened to be in the scenario I gave? How would they feel if their child were walking the dog and disappeared, had no right to legal representation and could not say what they had said or where they had been? Mr Deputy Speaker, I say to those opposite: 'How would you feel if that were the case?' That is what you are proposing to vote for. That is your proposal.

Extending the power to the transport and supply of goods to construction sites, including resource platforms offshore, is totally and utterly unwarranted. This was not the policy that those opposite took to the election. If they just brought back the ABCC, there would be some consistency in their position, but this is not what they are proposing today and this is not what the coalition took to the last election. This is the ABCC on steroids. This is another example of those opposite turning out to be not the government that the public of Australia thought they were voting for.

Our position is fair. Our position is the sensible centre. We listened to Murray Wilcox and his recommendations. We got the balance right. We restored fairness in the investigative powers. We brought in videotaping, with Commonwealth Ombudsman involvement. There are safeguards all through the legislation that exists now. I urge anyone to have a look at it. We brought it back to the centre, and those opposite did not.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that industrial disputes in the building and construction industry are on average one-fifth of the rates seen under the previous coalition government—and, last I saw, the ABS was not affiliated to the Australian Labor Party—and that productivity has increased and, on average, is almost three times higher under Fair Work than under Work Choices. So I say to those opposite: don't come into this place and give us arguments about productivity, disputation and matters about the economy when the facts don't back you up.

I urge all those people who may be listening to parliament today and to the Labor contributions on this legislation to write, email or phone their coalition representative and say, 'I want fairness and justice in the workplaces of Australia', because you will not get it under this legislation.

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