Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak against the Building Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill. It seeks to reintroduce measures that are offensive to Australian values and that infringe basic human rights; it is a bill with a false premise—namely, that there are special dangers in the building and construction industry that require unacceptably draconian measures in response. The truth is there are real dangers in the building and construction industry, as there are at sea and on the wharves—and they are principally dangers to the safety and wellbeing of the workers who build Australia and who connect our island nation through maritime freight and transport to the rest of the world.

The government has returned this bill to parliament entirely on the basis of cynicism, and entirely to suit their own narrow political purposes. It is disappointing to begin our parliamentary work in an election year with a piece of ideological propaganda masquerading as legislation. It is disappointing that our work here, which should be focused on the big social and economic challenges like climate change and affordable housing and mental health, is instead occupied with partisan manoeuvring. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that Australians want to talk about the important issues that will shape our future, yet we begin this year as we ended the last—with an attempt to misrepresent the labour movement, to demonise workers and the unions that represent them.

But this bill goes further than that because it offends against a number of critical human rights principles—and no-one should be sanguine about that, least of all those who profess to understand the importance of individual rights and liberties. Others have quoted Nicola McGarrity and Professor George Williams from the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, but I want to repeat their analysis for the benefit of my constituents. They have said, quite plainly, in relation to the powers that this bill would seek to re-establish:

… 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.

Those rights and freedoms are fundamental to our way of life.

There is no tolerance for criminality in Australian life. Where that occurs—at a work site or in a boardroom—it should be dealt with by the responsible law enforcement authorities. If there are instances of fraud or misconduct within any industry, be it the construction industry or the financial advisory sector, those cases should be investigated and pursued in the courts, as has always been the case. But let's remember that the Cole royal commission—all $60 million and 23 volumes worth—resulted in not one criminal prosecution.

I am always concerned that people should approach these issues with some reference to the real world, and so I encourage members to revisit the recent ABC 7.30 report on the tragic deaths of two young men that occurred on a Jaxon construction site in Perth in 2015. Mick Buchan of the WA branch of the CFMEU has quite rightly pointed out that the under-funding of workplace safety mechanisms and oversight resources has meant that the danger to life and limb in the construction industry has grown. That is something that people must recognise whenever they hear the term 'militant union', because the fact that unions like the CFMEU and the MUA are strong in their response to unsafe working conditions flows directly from the fact that too many workers in those industries do not come home or come home with serious injuries.

To put things in perspective on the question of the need for regulatory reform, let's also remember that, while two royal commissions, costing the Australian taxpayer $140 million, have resulted in 150 recommendations for further investigation—but, as yet, no criminal prosecutions—11,000 workers in the last year alone needed to have $22.3 million recovered in back pay by the Fair Work Ombudsman. That is why Labor, on behalf of working Australians, is proposing more effective regulation to protect workers from underpayment, sham contracting and other forms of exploitation.

Australia has so many important and urgent challenges that it really seems bizarre that we should have to deal with this reheated folly the government has brought before us. It is an approach the Australian community thoroughly rejected when it removed the Howard government. It is an approach that was thoroughly rejected in the form of the Orwellian Work Choices.

Let me conclude by saying that the shadow minister cut to the heart of the issue when he said that workers in the building and construction industry should be subject to the same laws as other workers. It is a matter of basic fairness, and it is a case that has been made with great clarity, detail and force by my colleagues.

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