Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I will start by commenting on a couple of the things the member for Dobell covered in her speech on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014. Firstly, at the very beginning of her speech, she said that the fact that the opposition was not supporting the bill was an indication that the opposition supported some of the worst behaviour of a small number of union officials. That of course is not the truth. For the benefit of the member for Dobell: sometimes two people can see the same problem—and can even have equivalent views about the seriousness of the problem—but can disagree on the answer. I think that is what is happening in this House at the moment. I do not think there is anyone in this House, on either side, who believes that officials of registered organisations—be they representatives of unions or employers—should be able to get away with the kinds of behaviour we have seen in recent months from some people who had been elected or appointed to represent the interests of their members.

When we on this side look at the problem, however, we disagree with the answer the government has put forward. We disagree for a number of reasons. Firstly, the member for Dobell herself said that she was seeking to ensure that officials of registered organisations were held to account in the same way those in corporations were. But this bill goes much further than that. The penalties imposed on officials of registered organisations exceed those imposed for equivalent corporate crimes. So this bill does not match the penalties for registered organisations with those for corporations; it in fact goes further for registered organisations—much further.

The other interesting part of the member for Dobell's speech was when she listed the outcomes of the inquiries into the HSU case involving Mr Thomson. She talked about the Fair Work inquiry. She talked about the 181 breaches of registered organisation rules and HSU rules—and about the penalties imposed. In doing so, she in fact she described how effective the current regime was in dealing with the HSU case. While she was putting all that forward as an indication of why you should change the rules, it actually demonstrates that those rules worked. A person has been appropriately investigated, breaches have been found and penalties have been applied—a jail sentence has been handed down. That demonstrates an extremely effective piece of regulation that did its job very well.

It is not really necessary to state this, because I think everybody in this House would agree, but none of us have any tolerance for corrupt union officials or for corrupt officers of employer bodies. Nobody in this House has a tolerance for that. I have no tolerance for people who offer bribes to union officials or for those who receive them. I do not make the distinction that one side is better than the other. When the government talks about corrupt union officials, I would feel more comfortable if it also occasionally mentioned the people who offered or received the bribes—or the businesses that engaged bikie gangs to collect their debts or to bully union officials. There are many aspects surrounding this issue of union corruption that we are not talking about. Again, I would feel more confident that the government was seriously concerned about corruption if the debate dealt also with those who interact with union officials.

Unlike many of those on the other side, I am a great supporter of the union movement, although I do not myself come from the union movement. I did work for a registered organisation, but it was an employer body. I ran the Australian Independent Record Labels Association for nearly seven years. It represented almost all—about 80 per cent by the end of my time there—of the independent labels in Australia. We worked to level the playing field. We did the kinds of deals and bulk agreements needed to level the playing field between the small end of the industry and the very large players. It was a great occupation to have. It was one of the best jobs in the country.

So my background, my perspective, is that of a person who represented employers, not workers. Yet I have been a union member all of my life—because I think they are incredibly important organisations. In many ways the work the union movement has done for over a century has helped to create a ballast in our economy that perhaps those on the opposite side of this chamber do not appreciate—the permanent secure work that so many people enjoyed for so long and the working conditions in our public service, in our public hospitals and in our fire brigades. Secure, stable jobs create a ballast. As a result of the efforts of the union movement, when there is great volatility in the economy, there remains a substantial group of workers who feel secure. That group is less likely to stop spending as quickly as others stop spending and they are more likely to start spending again a little earlier. That helps to smooth out some of the bumps, some of the volatility, in the economy.

For over a century, unions have worked to help provide real opportunities for family life—the 38-hour week, weekends, days off, extra rostered days off, four weeks annual leave, family leave et cetera. These things allow people to spend time with their family. Even more importantly than that, perhaps, unions have helped ensure that work requirements are planned in advance—so families can know what time they will be able to spend together. All of these things help create ballast in our economy as well. They help to create stable families, families who have savings, who plan, who accumulate assets and who have a greater chance of staying together.

So behind all the to-and-fro in this House about whether unions are good or bad—and we know the government do not like any worker who belongs to a union; they do not like the maritime workers, they do not like the construction workers and they do not like manufacturing workers, because they are unionised—

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