Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The 2007 federal election, at which I was elected for the first time, had a big focus on industrial relations. If you listen to the Labor Party, it was the union campaign against Work Choices that won it for them. In the year of Kevin 07, a major part of the debate at that election was about industrial relations.

Deputy Speaker, you might not recall my maiden speech, because you were not here in the chamber at the time, but I did reveal at that particular time that I had a family history of union membership. I must admit, I had been a member of a union at one stage in my life. I had no choice. I was forced into it by the gas and fuel department in Victoria; as workers in that department, we had no choice; we had to be members of the union. As I said, I had a family history of union membership. My uncle was the secretary of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union in Melbourne It is a prime example of a good, operating union that worked in the interests of the union leaders and certainly not their workers. That is for sure, as we saw from the bottom-of-the-harbour royal commission many years ago. But these are some of the things you have to bear as family—you cannot choose your family, can you?

Industrial relations certainly did not win the election for Labor in the west, as the Liberals won two seats off Labor; one of them being my own seat of Swan and the other being the seat of Cowan. There are many reasons that the people of Western Australia have for a long period of time been concerned about the Labor Party's industrial relations policies in our state. Even this year, the WA Labor Party continues to give them these reasons and so we saw the Liberal Party once again come to the fore in the recent WA Senate election and dismal result of the Labor Party in Western Australia.

There are two things that help us understand why this is the case. The first is the history of union militancy in the state. It was interesting that the minister mentioned in his speech the recent case featuring CFMEU national president Joe McDonald and cited it as a need for these reforms. He forgot to leave Joe's old mate, Kevin Reynolds, out of the picture, but he should be included. Joe McDonald and Kevin Reynolds were like Siamese twins and they spent many years terrorising good, honest employers and businesses via the industrial relations platform in Western Australia. The minister told the House about a recent incident where the CFMEU was fined $193,600 after ignoring the request of an industrial relations consultant to leave a site owned by CITIC Pacific's Sino Iron Ore in Western Australia. Mr Pyne said that when Mr McDonald was asked by a consultant to leave the site, because he did not have a right-of-entry permit, Mr McDonald replied:

I haven’t had one for seven years and that hasn’t f***ing stopped me.

That is typical of the attitude of unions in Western Australia.

Seven years ago, it was Mr McDonald, a unionist known in Western Australia for his militancy, who famously declared, 'We are coming back. As the polls predicted, it's a Rudd victory.' It was also Mr Kevin Reynolds, at a function I attended, who said that Kevin Rudd would sell his grandmother to win the election. Kevin Reynolds gave us a true picture of Mr Rudd at that particular time before the 2007 election.

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