Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to be able to stand and speak on the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 [No. 2]. It is a very emotive topic. It gives me great comfort to be able to stand and speak on this bill, as I spoke on it the first and second time it was introduced to the House.

I wholeheartedly believe that reform is screaming out to happen in this sector. Evidence that we need to see reform in the union movement, not only in the building sector but across the union movement generally, comes from looking at union membership across the country. Some couple of decades ago, union membership in this country was as high as 40 per cent. Australia needs to have strong unions. Australia needs strong unions to make sure that when a worker goes to work they have fair and equitable representation. So it saddens me when I look at the recent ABS statistical data, which says that union membership has declined to a figure as low as 11 per cent. We need to ask ourselves why. Why is it that so many workers who were members of a union no longer see the value in making a weekly or monthly contribution to a union? I can only assume that it relates to the findings of the recent royal commission. It used words like 'corruption', 'intimidation', 'thuggery' and 'bullying'. Ask yourself why union membership is declining. Put the other end of the spectrum together. I know the Australian Labor Party is motivated to try and rebuild their union movement. There is a vehicle for that to happen and I wish that it happens. I give all strength to their arm to make sure that unions do provide representation to members.

But, in order to do that, we need to clean the show up. We need to clean up aspects of the industry. For too long I have seen front-page headlines in newspapers around the nation—for example in Queensland, where CFMEU members have engaged with notorious bikie gangs who, allegedly, are outsourced to strongarm either builders or members and coerce them into joining the union movement. That is not how you rebuild the organisation—by threatening.

The bill itself pertains to improving productivity. Unions threaten that they will walk off worksites unless large sums of money are paid, under the auspices of training, to the union movement. Yes, we need trained personnel on union sites. As to the previous speaker's comments about the bill trying to water down occupational health and safety, I do not see that we seek to do that anywhere in this bill.

We seek to clean up an organisation which is screaming out for help. There has been negative press, and connotations around the country, as we have seen only too well with members of this House, and more recently with the Jacksons and the Williams—and the names go on, of those who have left a sour taste in the membership's mouth from the way they have conducted themselves in and around governance. In saying that, when that negative press was around there were unions that took that opportunity to put their own organisations under the microscope, and they have done that successfully. They have made sure that they are now beyond reproach when it comes to governance and the appropriation of union members' funds. But I would suggest that this royal commission and the findings that have come from it will add no favour to the CFMEU and the construction industry until some of these reforms are pushed forward.

This is not the first time we have been here. I think the previous speaker mentioned that we have seen a number of royal commissions in this space—three in the last 30 years. One would need to ask oneself why. Why is it that this old chestnut is just the easy go-to? It is because it is the most public. It is the one that outrages or incenses the Australian public so much. As I said earlier, it is crying out for reform.

One of the previous speakers also asked: 'Why aren't we coming in here and taking on the big end of town? Why aren't we looking at trying to tackle phoenixing?' Well, last year we did tackle phoenixing, through the economics committee of this House. I think the recommendations were supported by both sides of the House, as to limiting those in the corporate world having a trading name, not paying their subcontractors and then starting up trading again the next day. No-one wants to see that type of behaviour. I will not take my foot off the throat of that sector, because it equally needs attention, and the House has given it due attention and will continue to monitor it.

You need to ask why so many members on the other side of the House come in and debate so passionately from this position. Members from the government have alluded to the relationship that exists with some members of the Labor Party and to the machinations of preselection and to the close involvement that the union membership has in members having the privilege to serve in this place and to how much weight is given to the union movement in a member being elected to the parliament. And then you look at the line of donations that come from the union movement. I am not saying that that is a bad thing. But Labor can virtually take no position other than to rigorously defend this position because they see no wrong. In this House on this particular bill, you could make the assumption that Labor's master is not the Australian public but the union movement, which they rely on for preselection and to help fund campaigns.

As I said, I want the union movement to be as strong as it ever was. Embrace these reforms. Help clean up an industry which is screaming out for attention.

The shadow minister who has carriage of industrial relations has a close relationship with the CFMEU. So you can only make the assumption that there are additional motivations that bring people into this House to defend this position.

We heard comments about 'salacious smears'. Well, I can recall countless current affairs programs and media releases about unions allegedly heavying builders and workers on worksites. I heard no-one from the other side make the argument that these were 'salacious smears' of their union bosses. But when we put forward well-thought-out reforms, brought about by the royal commission of Justice Dyson Heydon, he was attacked quite openly in the press by the union movement for not being even-handed—for being biased. Those claims as to Justice Dyson Heydon were unfounded. Evidence for his findings came from his commission and evidence to the previous inquiry, the Cole royal commission.

I think that the Australian public have an appetite to clean up this industry. I listened to this debate. No-one wants to see a dilution of the occupational health and safety regime in the sector, and this bill goes nowhere near speaking to that. This bill speaks to putting in tougher penalties. This bill speaks to working with the labour movement to rebuild what was, historically, a respected sector.

There was constant evidence that the building sites and construction projects in Australia were hotbeds of intimidation, lawlessness, thuggery and violence. The final report of the royal commission provided compelling evidence of the need for reform in this industry.

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 that in the rest of the Australian economy.

I want to go to some other comments that were made about why we are talking about productivity. The previous speaker mentioned that the only way they believe they could get productivity was by paying the workers less money. That is not what this is about. It is not about reducing the hourly rate, and nowhere in this bill does it speak to that. But, in its opening title the bill does speak about 'improving productivity', and that is why we are speaking about productivity gains. The productivity gain that hopefully comes from this is that, while the ABCC existed, the economy and industrial performance of the building and construction industry significantly improved. That is what we want to get back to when we say that we want to improve productivity. 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. Wouldn't that be an outstanding outcome that Labor could own: by increasing productivity on historical standards by no less than nine per cent, when the previous ABCC was in place?

But if you do not want to take up the challenge of productivity, the Australian Labor Party should take up the challenge for the Australian consumer, because the report also stated that during that period consumers were better off by around $7.5 billion annually. So, if you were going to build a high-rise and the union came along and allegedly said, 'Whatever you think your operational cost is, you need to factor in another couple of dollars.' The builder is then going to take that amount, whatever it might be, over and above the cost of the construction and direct the money to the union. The Australian public has had enough of that. They are sick of paying that additional cost—those costs that are unrelated to construction. We want to return to the days of productivity, where we can go to the open market and get a quote, whereby we are not just going to the market and dealing with those who have union affiliation. Seven and a half billion dollars annually, and fewer days were lost through industrial action.

The coalition government is committed to doing all that is necessary to reform the building and construction industry and to reinstitute the rule of law in this sector. The coalition government wholeheartedly believes that workers deserve to be able to go to work each day without the fear of being harassed, intimidated and subjected to violence—a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, without the fear of being bashed or intimidated.

Led by the Leader of the Opposition, the former Labor government undermined confidence in the building and construction industry by abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which 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 that is inefficient and unstable. The restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the code that supports its work is a critical reform for Australia.

This is a reform that I wholeheartedly support. I understand why those on the other side of the House defend their position. I wish for the Australian Labor Party and the union movement to become stronger as a result of this. But don't come here and pretend that this bill seeks to dilute workplace health and safety issues, when what it does, as in the naming of the bill, is seeks to improve productivity, to remove the lawlessness, the injustices and the thuggery, words that seem to have become synonymous with an out-of-control union movement. Union membership needs to increase. In order to do that, this bill becomes the building block for the Australian Labor Party and the Australian union movement to become stronger.

See this speech in context