Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I have never seen the member for Corangamite at any of those services—correct me if I am wrong. But there is indeed an effort to be made. If you were serious about workers' safety, you would join us in bringing these concerns to the attention of the House. But, whether it is Work Choices on building sites or Work Choices on water, this government has form. It seems it is determined again to strip away the rights of workers. We stand here today because that is unacceptable, in our view. Here we are, participating in a Turnbull government accelerated debate, breaking all the usual parliamentary conventions, to go after the union movement one more time. It is the same old story from members opposite. The contrast between the two major parties is laid bare today. The Liberals have spent all their energy playing politics with their $80 million Australian taxpayer funded royal commission and they have done absolutely nothing about the horrific examples of workers being blatantly exploited at work today.

This week Labor announced that a Shorten Labor government will put in place a suite of reforms to protect rights at work by cracking down on unscrupulous employers who are willing to exploit workers. We will stand up for working families, for students who are working part-time and for those who are cutting back their hours as they approach retirement. Unlike this Liberal government, Labor will put people first, strengthening and protecting workers' rights at work. We will do that by cracking down on the underpayment of workers, with significantly increased penalties for employers who deliberately and systematically avoid paying their employees properly. We will be ramping up protections from sham contracting by strengthening legal protections for workers' entitlements and by increasing penalties. We will be giving the Fair Work Ombudsman more power to pursue employers who liquidate their companies in order to avoid paying the money they owe their workers. We will be introducing reforms to ensure that temporary overseas workers are not being exploited and underpaid and to ensure that there is a level playing field for workers in Australia.

Yet, here we are, debating legislation that will have precisely the opposite effect. If this bill is enacted, it will attack the rights of working people. It is not just Labor saying this; there are other experts who agree. Nicola McGarrity and Professor George Williams from the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales have said:

… the ABC Commissioner's investigatory powers have the potential to severely restrict basic democratic rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to silence.

And I thought the Liberal Party were all about free speech!

There is a central tenet here, and that is that we believe workers in the building and construction industry should be subject to the same laws that apply to all other workers. This is of course consistent with the principle I mentioned before around equality of all persons before the law. Why is it that Malcolm Turnbull thinks there should be different laws for construction workers than for the director of the Victorian Liberal Party?

It is also absolutely misleading for the government to keep referring to alleged criminal conduct to justify this bill and the introduction of the ABCC. Remember the ABCC governs civil, not criminal, behaviour. It does not matter how many times the government refers to criminal conduct in the same sentence and the necessity to revive the construction watchdog; it does not change the fact that it is a civil regulator. The creation of the ABCC in 2005 was the first time in Australian history that an industrial-specific inspectorate had been legislated. It operated in an aggressive, biased and coercive manner and did not pursue or investigate breaches such as underpayment of wages, automatically ensuring that there was no impartiality about the commission.

The creation of the former Australian Building and Construction Commission was based on the recommendations of yet another conservative royal commission, this time established under the Howard Liberal government: the Cole royal commission. That commission alleged that the building and construction industry was characterised by lawlessness—the same arguments we have heard again from members opposite in this debate. The minister, in his second reading speech on this bill, said the report of the royal commission:

… found consistent evidence that building sites and construction projects in Australia were hotbeds of intimidation, lawlessness, thuggery and violence.

Those are the exact words used by the member who spoke just prior to me in this debate. While the minister is happy to repeat the royal commission's wide-sweeping statements, what the minister fails to mention is that the $60 million Cole royal commission—which consisted of some 23 volumes and which referred some 31 individuals for prosecution—in fact resulted in not a single criminal prosecution, let alone any finding of guilt. So, out of this supposed hotbed of lawlessness which was said to have been rife, there was not a single prosecution, not a single finding of guilt. How is it that the commissioner and the government can rely on an assertion that there was 'consistent evidence', yet that supposed evidence resulted in not one criminal prosecution against a union official? It would be laughable if it were not so serious.

Royal commissions are not courtrooms. The same evidentiary standards do not apply, and hearsay evidence, which is not cross-examinable, has been stated as fact. Likewise, the most recent trade union royal commission referred a number of matters for further examination by authorities—somewhere in the region of 93. If the Liberal government want to say that fewer than 150 persons being referred for further investigation arising from two royal commissions is widespread lawlessness, then we would ask: what exactly is your definition of the more than 11,000 workers who are having to have $22.3 million recovered in back pay by the Fair Work Ombudsman because dodgy employers ripped them off just in the last year alone?

Is that widespread lawless conduct? Is the government seeking to introduce legislation that would increase penalties for those employers ripping off workers? No, it is not. It is only Labor that has a plan to protect the rights of Australia's working and middle-class families. Again, this just goes to show that a return to the ABCC is an ideological obsession for the Liberals. It has nothing to do with the protection of the interests of union members.

Another disgraceful display has been the government suggesting that it is merely reinstating the former ABCC as it was when disbanded by Labor. That is completely untrue. This legislation extends the reach of the ABCC into picketing, offshore construction and the transport and supply of goods to building sites. The minister said it himself in the second reading speech:

The definition of building work also includes the transporting or supplying of goods to be used in building work.

This is more than a revival; this is a greater encroachment upon workers than was originally the case.

A re-established ABCC will have significantly broader powers than its 2005 incarnation. If you drive a truck or sail a ship that has building products in or on it, if the Liberal government has its way, you had better get ready, because you could be swept off the street and forced to answer questions before the ABCC too—and you will not be able to tell your families or your boss that it happened. If the government were serious about wanting better union governance, stamping out corruption and better protecting union members, as they claim, they would be supporting the sensible proposals that Labor have put forward.

As was duly noted by the shadow minister for workplace relations in his contribution to this debate both in 2013 and earlier today, this bill is not about productivity, protecting workers or reducing corruption. It is about the Liberal government's determination to strip the rights of workers and reintroduce Work Choices. This is what it is all about. Work Choices is entrenched in the DNA of those opposite. They have an insatiable appetite to attack unions and diminish their capacity to represent their members, thereby slashing workers' rights and entitlements—all at taxpayers' expense. Labor has strongly opposed this bill in the past and does so again today.

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