Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. The point in relation to this matter is that there is no surprise that this government has chosen—and, of course, it is in the actual speech of the minister, yesterday—to rely upon the evidence of the royal commission to justify the reintroduction of this bill. This bill cannot be debated without debating the merits of the findings of the commission—and I accept, Mr Speaker, that you would understand that—because that is the justification for its reintroduction. That is, indeed, the entire substance of the minister, who contributed to the debate in the second reading speech yesterday, and he refers, throughout the course of his contribution, to other royal commissions as well as the royal commission that has just been completed.

If the government wants to say that fewer than 150 persons being referred to for further investigations arising from two royal commissions is widespread lawlessness, what exactly is their definition of 'more than 11,000 workers' to have $22 million recovered in back pay by the Fair Work Ombudsman because dodgy employers ripped them off in the last year? Is this widespread lawless conduct?

Is the government seeking to introduce legislation that would increase penalties for those employers ripping off workers? No, they are not. It is only Labor that has a plan to protect the rights at work of Australia's working- and middle-class families, and we would argue that this is a problem for the government. It is focusing on this particular matter but not focusing upon the broad problems that are occurring in the labour market.

The other issue that is relevant to this debate is the manner in which the volumes of the royal commission are being used. Minister Cash has had different positions on whether, in fact, members or senators will be able to access the confidential volumes to consider the merits of this bill. Indeed, over the course of the last few weeks we have seen a multiple number of positions taken by the government in access to confidential reports. We would argue that that has been a very, very messy chaotic arrangement. The Attorney-General made clear, last year, that nobody would see the confidential reports. Then the Minister for Employment in relation to providing access to those reports said that some independent senators would be given access to a redacted copy. Then she said that those senators would be provided with an unredacted copy, and then she said the senators would receive a redacted copy. Then there was an offer by the minister to one member of the opposition and one member of the Greens to access the confidential reports.

This has been a mess and it is entirely relevant to this debate because the government is relying upon those confidential reports to convince members and senators to support this legislation. I want to say a couple of things about that. Even with respect to the Cole royal commission, the government of the day did not provide those confidential reports to any parliamentarian, nor did the government of the day provide any confidential reports of the Costigan royal commission. This is unprecedented that the government would consider repudiating the recommendation of the royal commissioner in providing access to those volumes. This is new, and what I think not only is offensive, inequitable and transactional, is the minister's original decision to provide access only to those that she believed could be convinced and the government could then win their vote on the basis of access to those volumes.

This does speak to the way in which this government is dealing with this matter. This is a serious matter. If the royal commission is indeed a serious body—and of course it is—notwithstanding the criticisms I have, if the government is treating this matter seriously, then how can it trade access to these reports and be so inconsistent in its approach to these matters. Further the undertakings that the government is expecting those members and senators, who might have access to those confidential reports, to abide are so oppressive as to not allow them in any way whatsoever to indicate why they may or may not have changed their mind after accessing those reports. One of the volumes is subject to a non-publication order, but the second volume is not, yet the minister writes to the independent senators as if the second volume has the same conditions as the first.

I will go to the fourth undertaking that the government is expecting of those who might access those reports which says that you are not able to—and I am paraphrasing and am happy to be corrected if it is in any way against the spirit of the undertaking—refer to a detail or even the nature of the material contained within the volumes accessed. If you cannot even convey the nature of the material,—and I understand and accept that names should not be disclosed and identities should not be disclosed—if you cannot even talk about the nature of the matters, then how is it possible for independent senators to explain to the parliament, to the Senate and to the people of Australia why they may or may not have changed their mind, and how could an individual member of a political party that is in the parliament convey to his or her colleagues why there might be a reason to take note of the material confined within the confidential volumes?

The other point I make, because it is so pertinent to the debate about whether we support this bill, is this: the Cole royal commission's confidential volumes were kept confidential, as I have said, and so were the Costigan confidential volumes, but the difference between the Cole royal commission confidential reports and these confidential reports is that the Cole royal commission reports had referrals and findings that were kept confidential. There are no such referrals and there are no such findings against persons in these confidential reports of Mr Dyson Heydon, and I know that because Commissioner Dyson Heydon—at the time he was commissioner—made clear that it was the case in the final report.

So the volumes to which we refer do not even have findings or referrals at all, and yet, of course, the government seeks to rely upon the material, with a limited number of people being able to access it and, indeed, with nobody being able, because of the nature of the material, to even explain why they may or may not have changed their mind on such matters. We say that is very difficult for members and senators. It puts Independent senators in an invidious position. It puts any member or senator who accesses those reports in a difficult position, because nothing—not even a general conveying of a view as to why they may have reconsidered their position—can be expressed either in the parliament or, indeed, publicly.

We have significant problems with this bill—that is not unknown. I guess, in some respects, the reason why I am not going through each provision of this bill is that this is not the first time I have debated it in this House. It is not the first time I have replied to a second reading speech, and I did say, at the outset, that I ask people to also consider my second reading speech reply that I made in, I think, December 2013—that long ago. Our position, Labor's position, has never changed in that regard, and therefore it is important, given what has happened since and given the government is relying predominantly upon the royal commission's findings, that I go to those matters.

That they are offering to brief selected parliamentarians about a report which the government purports to rely on to justify this legislation is a contempt of the parliament itself and a violation of the system of representative democracy established under the Constitution. We do not believe that is the way confidential reports of royal commissions should be used. It is base, transactional politics. That is what it is. That is why the minister was overruled in cabinet and why then, of course, there was an offer to provide a very limited access to the opposition and to the Greens party.

The other point I wanted to make in my time allotted is about the disgraceful display that has been the government suggesting it is merely reinstating the former ABCC—that is not true. This legislation extends the reach of the ABCC into picketing, offshore construction, and transport and supply of goods to building sites. The minister says it 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 on it, then you can be taken off; you can be called in—dragged off the street or out of a truck—for secret questioning; you cannot disclose where you have been and you cannot disclose the contents of those interviews to your family or to your lawyer. This can be an ordinary worker. You cannot get proper legal representation, because those protections are taken away, in the main, in this bill.

The government's proposed body removes the current protections which require the director of Fair Work Building and Construction to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to issue an examination notice. In other words, whilst there still is a distinct and separate body that currently presides over the building industry, as we know—the FWBC—there will be no oversight. This bill will remove any administrative oversight by the AAT, for example. Think about this: before a police search warrant is issued, the police have to convince a magistrate of the need for the warrant, yet, of course, that would not apply under these circumstances. This bill is draconian. It is unfair. The Labor Party oppose it absolutely.

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