Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

We just heard from the honourable member opposite in a remarkable speech of five minutes in which the bill was so compromised and innocuous, at one point, that it was almost a triumph for the Labor Party, to then, within a few seconds, being one of the most horrific tramplings on industrial rights ever known to mankind. What we have seen here is the disorientation, the bitterness and the disappointment of honourable members opposite that their campaign to resist the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission for so many years has finally come to an end. It has come to an end. The ABCC is back. The rule of law is back. The bullying and the thuggery will come to an end. A million Australians who work in the construction and building sector know that their rights to be governed by the same laws that apply to all Australians will be supported.

What this does is: it improves the productivity of an industry and the integrity of an industry that represents eight per cent of our GDP, employs, as I said a moment ago, a million Australians and engages the efforts of 300,000 small businesses. This is a step to defend the rule of law, but it is also a vital economic reform. This reform and the registered organisations bill were equally bitterly resisted by the Labor Party in their determination to support not the two million members of trade unions but union bosses—whose misappropriations, fraud, bullying and thuggery had become so notorious that justice cried out for something to be done. The only barrier was the Labor Party. The political wing of the union movement has stood for years in the way of the reform of the union movement. It has stood in the way of defending the members of those unions. What we have seen from the Senate is a process that has resulted in amendments that have enabled us to restore that rule of law to the building and construction sector.

I commend the amendments to the House.

See this speech in context