Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Menzies, who along with many other members of this House and all of the members on our side, has long stood against union thuggery and in favour of the passage of the ABCC legislation. The reason why is that, when you look at our third-largest industry, construction, if you allow lawlessness, which is the approach which has been encouraged and fostered by the voting record of those on that side of the House, then you allow project insecurity to proceed, you allow higher costs to proceed and, as a consequence, you have lower job numbers. So this legislation which has passed today is about project security, it is about the rule of law and, above all else, it is about more jobs for workers.

There are two very different approaches. You can either support the rule of law—and more jobs in the construction sector—or you can oppose it, which they have done consistently. Why does it matter? Let us look at a couple of case studies. What we see in Brisbane is that they even allowed intimidation by the CFMEU in a project to provide security for homeless people, the Brisbane Common Ground project. In a case before the Federal Court, the court found the actions of the CFMEU amounted to a deliberate strategem. It found that a subcontractor who was not allied with the union asked, 'What are the consequences to my business if I bring my boys on site?' and a CFMEU official replied, 'You want to know what the consequences are? You would be committing industrial suicide.' That is the sort of intimidation that we set out to end. That is the sort of intimidation to which they turned a blind eye with their vote in the Senate today. They should be absolutely ashamed of standing by whilst intimidation gets the green light on their watch.

But it gets worse than that. The Pacific Fair Shopping Centre is home to many retail businesses on the Gold Coast. What we have is: a CFMEU official goes into the work shed of a subcontractor which is not unionised, throws all the gear out, throws the lunches out of the fridge and then, when asked by the subcontractors if they can go in, if they can put their lunches in, says: 'Get out of the shed, you scab. You're a'—extravagant expletive deleted—'piece of'—excrement—'mate. That's what you are.' Then he goes on: 'Maybe you can put Neil's stuff in the fridge.' Why would you put Neil's stuff in the fridge? Because Neil was a union member. At the end of the day, they stand for outright intimidation and thuggery. We stand for the rule of law and jobs. (Time expired)

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