Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

During the course of this debate on the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2] it is important not to forget the symbiotic relationship the Australian union movement has with the Australian Labor Party and the depths to which the ALP will stoop to keep their union masters happy. Since the release of the commission's findings, we have seen a campaign by the Labor Party to attack the report's credibility—we just heard an example of that from the previous speaker—and to attack the integrity of one of Australia's best regarded legal minds, in Commissioner Dyson Heydon. Labor's behaviour has been atrocious, and its defence of the union thuggery, outlined in the royal commission, shines a light on the ALP's rotten core. The Labor Party does not want to see the building unions or any other union reformed, because that would undermine its powerbase and the rivers of cash that flow from the union movement to the Labor Party year after year.

In the Northern Territory the ties between the unions and Labor were spectacularly exposed last year with the release of a commission of inquiry report into the extremely dodgy handover of a former seafarer's shelter, known as the Stella Maris, that overlooks Darwin Harbour, only minutes from the CBD. The previous Territory Labor government, instead of going through a properly managed community consultation process, gifted, on the eve of the 2012 election, this wonderful site to Unions NT—their union mates. Unsurprisingly, when this was discovered by the incoming Country Liberal government an inquiry into exactly what took place was convened. It was presided over by John Lawler, who had a 35-year history in law enforcement in this country, including four years as CEO of the Australian Crime Commission.

The findings were unambiguously bad for the Territory Labor Party and for Unions NT, but their default position on the negative findings was to attack Commissioner Lawler and the work of the Australian Crime Commission to take it out on him. However, repercussions from the inquiry eventually forced the resignation of the Labor Party's opposition leader, Delia Lawrie, and her deputy leader during this time, Gerry McCarthy, who was up to his neck in it, remains tarnished by the event today. The commission showed that the Labor Party was prepared to compromise hardworking Territory public servants, the Territory public service as a whole, and ignore the interests of the broader community just so it could pander to and do favours for its union mates. I think that behaviour is absolutely disgraceful.

I would like to take this opportunity to put on record in this House some of the findings of the Stella Maris commission of inquiry. The findings stated:

On 10 July 2012, a Cabinet Submission, number 4033: 'The future of the Stella Maris site—Lot 5260 Town of Darwin (1 McMinn Street)', went to the Northern Territory Cabinet for consideration. The submission was considered by only four of the eight Cabinet ministers … A decision was made to offer a Crown lease term over the site to Unions NT without an expression of interest process. This decision was against the strong and considered advice of the broader public sector not to grant the site to any community group without following an expression of interest process. Despite the fact he was sponsoring the submission, the Minister for Lands and Planning, Gerald McCarthy, was absent from the meeting.

Following the meeting, the department was advised of the Cabinet decision and began drafting the lease conditions and letter of offer for Minister G McCarthy to sign and send to Unions NT to meet his ministerial responsibilities under the Crown Lands Act. It is clear that, prior to and immediately following the Cabinet meeting, the department had little to no information about what Unions NT intended to do with the site.

The department believed there was an expectation to make the lease offer before the pre-election government caretaker period commenced on 6 August 2012 and, given the official Cabinet direction, acted with undue haste in processing Unions NT’s flawed community land grant application. This led to the department breaching its own processes for dealing with community land grants. The grant application the department processed was inaccurate, three years out of date and did not document Unions NT’s true intentions for the site. The department should have made the minister aware of exactly what parts of the community land grant process had not been followed.

The lease conditions and letter of offer were prepared and stamped with Minister G McCarthy’s signature on 3 August 2012, the last working day before the caretaker period.

No public information was provided during the process, causing a public information ‘blackout’.

Commissioner Lawler then scrutinised the role of individuals and groups involved in this dodgy deal, starting with the Labor cabinet. He said of the cabinet:

It is difficult to understand how the Cabinet ministers could have reasonably rejected the advice in the Cabinet Submission to have an open and transparent expression of interest process, and proceed to approve the proposal to grant a Crown lease exclusively to Unions NT based on one paragraph in the submission which included a warning about potential criticism in pursuing that option.

…      …   …

… the starting point should have been a process that called for more transparency, not less, and complete adherence to the long-standing community land grant process. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred.

He said of Minister McCarthy:

Minister G McCarthy’s decision was arguably unreasonable and, if challenged in a court, would be susceptible to being overturned. It was unreasonable because he did not have the necessary information to justify selectively choosing Unions NT over any other group.

He said further of Minister McCarthy that he:

did not act with accountability, responsibility or with proper consideration of those likely to be affected by his decision, namely the numerous community groups that had expressed interest in the site over a long period of time.

He went on to say:

There was no public advertisement, no media release and no way for the public to know of his decision until a notice was published in the Government Gazette on 26 September 2012. This public information ‘blackout’ deprived members of the public of their entitlement to know that Minister G McCarthy had made a decision and the reasons why that decision was made.

He went on to say:

Having considered all the factors in relation to the decision to propose the grant of the lease to Unions NT for the site, Minister G McCarthy’s conduct was not accountable, responsible, or in the public interest.

He said of Minister Lawrie:

Minister Lawrie acted with bias over many years, forming a view in 2009 that Unions NT should be exclusively granted a lease over the site without an expression of interest process.

He went on to say:

Minister Lawrie should have made it clear to the department that it was her intention to grant the site to Unions NT without an expression of interest process. Minister Lawrie may have genuinely believed that granting the site exclusively to Unions NT was in the public interest, the way she involved herself in the process was not proper and was unfair to the public and other community groups.

He said of Unions NT:

The application submitted to both Minister Lawrie and Minister G McCarthy on behalf of Unions NT did not have a proper factual basis, was misleading and exaggerated the history between Unions NT and the site.

The Unions NT Executive failed in its responsibility to ensure the application submitted on its behalf to the ministers was of a high standard and reflected its true intentions for the site.

There is plenty more but with limited time I have, I have placed on record some of the important details that I think need to be put on the record that outline the deal between the Unions and the NT Labor.

I now return to the bill. As many of my colleagues have rightly pointed out, the construction industry provides many jobs for workers in small business, large enterprises and contractors. My dad spent many years in the construction industry and by all accounts was a highly skilled tradesman, as was his father.

This industry is critical to a productive, prosperous and internationally competitive Australia, and we on this side recognise the importance of an industry that is vital to job creation and essential to Australia's economic and social wellbeing. The bill we are debating today re-establishes the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a genuinely strong watchdog that will maintain the rule of law to protect workers and constructors and improve productivity on building sites and construction projects, whether onshore or offshore. If passed, the bill will reverse Labor's changes to the laws which underpinned the Australian Building and Construction Commission before it was abolished in 2012. Importantly, if passed, the bill prohibits unlawful industrial action, unlawful picketing and coercion and discrimination. Penalties that are high enough to provide an effective deterrent will apply to breaches of these provisions. A wide range of effective remedies such as injunctions will also be available to the ABCC and persons affected by unlawful behaviour.

The case to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission is clear. For many years, the building and construction sector provided the worst examples of industrial relations lawlessness. Going back to 2001 when the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry found compelling evidence of the need for reform in this industry, there were many examples of how building sites and construction projects in Australia were hotbeds of intimidation, lawlessness, thuggery and violence. Projects were delayed, costs blew out and investment in our economy and infrastructure was being jeopardised.

Central to the royal commission's findings was industry lawlessness. It concluded that the standards of commercial and industrial conduct exhibited in the building and construction industry represented a significant departure from those in the rest of the Australian economy. Witnesses reported criminal conduct, unlawful and inappropriate conduct including breaches of the relevant workplace relations and work health and safety legislation and a disregard for Commonwealth and state revenue statutes. Inappropriate conduct was defined by the royal commission as 'behaviour that infringes the Workplace Relations Act 1996, a person's right of choice or other conduct which departs from recognised norms of civility and behaviour'. While the ABCC existed, the economic and industrial performance of the building and construction industry significantly improved. For example, a 2013 Independent Economics report on the state of the sector during this period found that building and construction industry productivity grew by more than nine per cent, consumers were better off by around $7.5 billion annually and, very importantly, fewer working days were lost through industrial action.

We know what happened: the former Labor government came under sustained pressure from building and construction unions to abolish the ABCC and the building code that supported its work. The Labor government procrastinated for five years, but the Workplace Relations Minister, who was Bill Shorten at the time, gave in to union demands and abolished the organisation in 2012 and replaced it with a regulator with significantly reduced funding and powers. This saw the bad old days return—wildcat stoppages, militant protests, demands from unions that their mates be employed on projects ahead of non-union members and an increase in construction industry disputes to a seven-year high.

I think the case is pretty clear as to why we should restore the commission. The main objective of the bill is to provide an improved workplace relations framework for building and construction work to ensure that this is carried out fairly, efficiently and productively for the benefit of all building industry participants and for the benefit of the Australian economy as a whole. The bill intends to improve the bargaining framework so as to further encourage genuine bargaining at the workplace level. Enterprise bargaining and negotiations must be harmonious, sensible and productive and should be tailored to the particular workplace.

The coalition government is committed to doing all that is necessary to reform the building and construction industry and to re-instate the rule of law in this sector. We on this side wholeheartedly believe that workers deserve to be able to go to work each day without the fear of being harassed, intimidated or subjected to violence. The former Labor government undermined confidence in the building and construction industry. Abolishing the ABCC has seen a return to lawlessness and an increase in the number of days where work is simply not being done in the industry. Australia cannot afford to have a building and construction industry which is inefficient and unstable. The restoration of the ABCC and the code which supports its work is critical for the reform of Australia. The contents of this bill reflect this commitment. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

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