Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

It was shameful—intimidating the community and their supporters attacking police horses. We had workers on the site purchasing an advertisement in the Herald Sun with an open letter to their own union bosses asking for the blockades to stop. Images of these protests were seen on television screens around the world. What message did that send to national and international companies about investing in building and construction projects, particularly in Melbourne, or in Australia?

We saw the CFMEU grossly bullying nonmembers by creating posters labelling them—amongst other things—'scabs' and advocating that they be run out of the industry, in open defiance of the Fair Work Act and Supreme Court orders to end the protests.

We saw a violent dispute at the Little Creatures brewery site in Geelong, where union picketers were accused in court documents of making throat-cutting gestures, making threats to stomp heads in, workers who wanted to get on with the work being told they were 'dead', and shoving, kicking and punching of motor vehicles.

We saw union protestors threatening people with 'Colombian neckties' at City West Water in Werribee, where the dispute was so heated that workers had to be flown in by helicopter. The term 'Colombian neckties' came from the Colombian civil war of 1948 and involves slashing a victim's throat horizontally and pulling their tongue out through the open wound.

We saw CFMEU officials threaten to stop work on a Lendlease project in Adelaide if a union flag was not moved to a more prominent position.

The previous government was well aware of this type of behaviour in the building and construction industry and so was understandably reluctant to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, despite strong union pressure. It contracted Justice Murray Wilcox to review the industry, to buy time. Justice Wilcox recognised the need for, and the benefit provided by, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, stating in his report that 'the ABCC's work is not yet done' and 'it would be unfortunate' if the ABCC's replacement body 'led to a reversal of the progress that has been made'. But that is exactly what we have seen.

The Labor government, led by the now Leader of the Opposition, set up a severely curtailed version of the ABCC called the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate. As well as having its powers substantially curtailed, it faced significant reductions in funding and staffing of around 30 per cent. The inspectorate was hampered by quite novel restrictions on its ability to initiate or continue with proceedings if matters the subject of litigation had been settled by the parties. These amendments were introduced without any prior notice or forewarning by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the responsible minister. They are the equivalent of a person running a red light and causing an accident and then police being unable to charge that person with any offence, including running the red light, if that person has settled with the other person involved in the accident. These provisions are certainly contrary to former Prime Minister Gillard's views while she was the responsible minister in 2009. At that time she said, in relation to misbehaviour in the building industry, that 'each and every breach of the law is wrong and each and every breach of the law should be acted upon'.

These provisions in the Labor government's legislation were heavily criticised by the Law Council of Australia as giving primacy to the interests of private litigants over the application and enforcement of the laws of the parliament. The Law Council of Australia urged reconsideration of this provision and the community can be reassured that there is no such provision in the coalition government's bill.

The election commitment

In the government's policy to improve the Fair Work laws, the coalition government committed to re-establishing the ABCC to once again ensure the rule of law and productivity on commercial building sites and construction projects, whether onshore or offshore.

We took this commitment to the 2010 and 2013 federal elections as a key policy. So important did we see this commitment that we also committed to re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission within 100 days of the parliament first sitting. This government was given a clear mandate by the Australian people to make this change.

The coalition government is committed to ensuring that the rule of law is maintained and that workers in the building and construction sector can go to work free of intimidation and harassment.

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