Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the bill before the House today, the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013, and the cognate bill, the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013. As many of the speakers in this debate have already said, this bill seeks to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission, or the ABCC. This will reverse Labor's changes to the laws which saw the ABCC abolished in 2012. In the government's policy to improve fair work laws, we are committed to restoring the ABCC to ensure that the rule of law is adhered to in the building and construction industry and to seeing much-needed productivity restored.

Let us just remind the House that the coalition took this commitment not only to the last election, in 2013, but also to the 2010 election. We are here today because the Labor Party, under both former Prime Minister Rudd and former Prime Minister Gillard, kowtowed to the union movement and decided to withdraw from being the tough cop on the beat in the building and construction industry. I looked at a speech I made to this House in 2012 in the second reading debate on the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (Transition to Fair Work) Bill 2011, and much of what I said then is true today. I could almost reread my previous notes to the House and it would all be relevant. For example, the coalition established the Building and Construction Commission in 2005 in response to the Cole royal commission. The then industrial relations minister was our Prime Minister today, Tony Abbott. The Cole royal commission report found that unlawful and inappropriate conduct was widespread in the building and construction industry and that there were many bogus safety issues, such as the right of entry, which I will go to if I have the time.

What the ABCC achieved in that time was a 10 per cent increase in productivity. It provided an annual economic welfare gain of $5.5 billion per year. It reduced inflation by 1.2 per cent and it increased GDP by 1½ per cent. The number of working days lost annually per 1,000 employees in the construction industry fell from 224 in 2004 to just 24 in 2006. Building costs fell by 20 to 25 per cent, and long project delays were dramatically reduced. This is all from my previous speech; it is all true today. But what happened? Along came Prime Minister Gillard. As we know, all members opposite in this place have to belong to a union to be in the House of Representatives or, dare I say, in the Senate. They have to join a union.

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