Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will move to the Fair Work Building and Construction Commission and what is going on with the Fair Work Building and Construction Commission. We have seen time and time again in this place and the other place members of this government use the fair work building commission to name and shame individuals involved in the union movement. In fact, this government has used 195 questions without notice in question time to ask about the conduct and the behaviour of the fair work building commission.

We have to question how independent the fair work building commissioner is, with this statement by the Federal Court slamming the fair work building watchdog for abuse of power. On 7 April 2016 an article that appeared in the paper said that fair work was 'unjustifiably vexatious'. These are not my words; this is what was reported in a local paper—the director of fair work has unjustifiably vexatiously used his power. This is what the paper was saying. This was a report on what the Federal Court said, slamming the fair work watchdog. It went on to say in this particular case that the justice presiding over the matter 'on Thursday morning ruled the director of Fair Work was being "unjustifiably vexatious"'. These are pretty strong words that were used to describe the fair work building commission.

How does it come about that the Federal Court is saying this? I think we have to step through what is actually happening in some of our workplaces. In my electorate there is a worksite where construction work had gone on. It was a project that was partly funded by the previous government through Stronger Regions, which back then was known as the Regional Development Fund that was funded through the state government. There were issues in that case. The first thing that happened was, unfortunately and quite tragically, a worker fell into the orchestra pit and almost lost his life. Then we had a case where some subcontractors in that workplace went into receivership because they were not being paid by the principal contractor. Those people were sent letters of demand—somebody threatening to sue somebody else. That is what happened on this workplace.

This project was not without complications. A worker almost lost his life. Workers were not paid and subcontractors were not paid. Clearly there were issues, yet the fair work building commissioner did not go after those issues. Instead, he pulled up the organiser for the CFMEU and said, 'You didn't show your permit when you were asked.' Are these the most pressing issues on that worksite? The answer is no. It is not the first case and it is not the last case. As the Federal Court said a few weeks ago:

There is an established pattern of the FWBC pursuing the union at every opportunity, dragging union officials through courts …

This is what was reported in the media about what the fair work building commission has become.

How close is this government to the fair work building commission? This is now out in the public jurisdiction. You step through what happened in these workplaces—workers almost lost their lives and workers were being exploited and not being paid. Rather than investigating that—small businesses being threatened to be sued for speaking out about the fact that they had not been paid—they tried to slap the union official and it goes up in the local paper. It is a name and shame game.

The other example in relation to this is the Bendigo Hospital redevelopment project and Lendlease. I acknowledge Lendlease because they have now paid those workers. Some $600,000 in wages were owed to those workers. The Prime Minister sat down with Lendlease and said, 'We need to stop the lawlessness going on in Lendlease workplaces,' yet the Prime Minister was not asking Lendlease to pay the workers who had not been paid—migrant Chinese workers who lived in Melbourne and were driving up to Bendigo. They lost thousands and thousands of dollars because their company went into receivership. It took the CFMEU and a protest to get Lendlease to go: 'Okay, we have got a problem. We need to fix this.' Yet this government would say that it is not the contractor that is the problem; it is the union for being the whistleblower and exposing what is going on.

Unions are speaking out day in and day out about what is happening in our workplaces and this government has turned a blind eye to it. Whether it be the exploitation of temporary workers—and we found out again today that this government has said nothing to support the people who were working for 7-Eleven who were not paid properly—guest workers and migrant workers in this country, or whether it be temporary workers working in the cleaning industry, this government again is turning its back on them. This government cut the wages of the cleaners working in Parliament House. This government is failing Australian workers. Australian workers are being sacked and replaced for being Australian. We see it happening in our shipping industry. We see it happening in our construction industry. We see it happening in our health industry.

The number of 457 visas under this government has increased. People are being signed up for jobs and being paid less than Australian workers. That is what is happening under this government's watch. Yet the reason why this parliament had to be reopened was not that workers were being treated badly; it was that the people who try to help them are apparently the people who are behaving badly.

The crisis going on in Australian workplaces is all to do with the fact that we do not have a regime or support system strong enough for those workers, and this government is now trying to convince the Australian people that it is all the fault of a few union officials. That could not be further from the truth. It has recalled parliament, brought us back here. It has used every trick in the book in parliament to try to get the legislation through. It uses friends in the media to try and push forward cases about individuals, cases which have now been thrown out of court, as I tried to demonstrate earlier. Where is the apology for all those union officials who have been named and shamed in this place and in the other place only to be proven innocent? Where is the apology for those union officials? This government claims to be the great advocate of truth and justice, yet it has not apologised. It has not once said, 'Sorry, we got that wrong.' There have been almost 200 questions in question time naming and shaming not just an organisation but individuals.

This is the reason why this parliament had to be recalled, yet those opposite will not talk about what is going on in our workplaces. Temporary workers, people who have come here, are being exploited, but the government has failed to act. It said it would set up a committee. It has not done anything. This is a government that wants to cut the pay of low-paid workers. It is going after penalty rates. It wants to do is set up tougher rules for registered organisations because they are the organisations speaking out about the impact that cutting penalty rates will have.

This is a government that wants to go to an election on a real con, on a sham. It wants to go after its opposition. This is a government that has no respect for our democracy. It has no respect for this institution. It has no respect at all for the rule of law, even though it invokes it all the time. It has used the last three years to try to create a narrative to get to the point where they can try and con the Australian people that the biggest problem, the most urgent problem, we have to deal with and the reason we need to go to a double dissolution is a few union officials. That could not be further from the truth. If only the government went after the people who are ripping off temporary workers with the same vigour. If only the government went after the employers who are not ensuring safe workplaces with the same vigour. Instead, it has have brought us back here today, and here I am for the second time in my first parliament doing an address-in-reply after the Governor-General has reopened parliament. It is not because of an urgent matter but because of a lie. (Time expired)

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