Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I note that there are no further government speakers who are willing to get up and defend the legislation that has been put forward in their name, and I can understand full well why. The innocuously named bill, the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017, is designed to induce or coerce employers to break an agreement that was made with them in good faith. I will say that again, because it is absolutely true and it is important that every member on the other side understands this. This is a bill designed to coerce or induce employers to break an agreement which has been made with their workforce in good faith. If an ordinary business, a union or a private individual did that, we would call it a crime or we would call it a tort. But when the government does it we call it lawmaking. It is no less a crime or a tort because it is brought forward in the name of the government.

Let us put this into context. This is a government that came back from a near-death experience in the August election with a grand plan to reshape the structure of Australia and to remodel the economy. We were promised great big new plans, but when we looked for the detail it amounted to nothing more than a $50 billion tax cut for the richest individuals in this country; a benefit cut for pensioners; a series of threatening show-cause and 'you are in debt' letters from the Minister for Human Services; and a proposition to amend the Australian building and construction industry bill. So there you have it: their great big bold plan for Australia.

This is a man who has strived his entire life—and I am talking about the member for Wentworth—to get to the position where he had the words 'Prime Minister of Australia' on his business card. He gets that opportunity, and his big plan for Australia is a tax cut for the richest, a benefit cut for pensioners and a bill to have a go at unions, just because he does not like them. It is not an agenda; it is farce. As I said, if this proposition was brought forward in the name of an ordinary individual, a business or a union, it would be called a crime, because, make no mistake, this bill is about inducing or coercing employers to break, breach or renege on agreement. That is its singular purpose.

The pillars of liberal philosophy, those talismans that thrust every one of those conservative members of parliament to stand for public office and come to this place revolve around a few things. There is the idea of freedom of contract, the idea that it is not the place of third parties and certainly not the place of governments to interfere in the rights of individuals to freely contract with each other and reach agreements and, once an agreement is struck, it should stick, and it should not be the role of other individuals to attempt to come in there and set that agreement aside. There is the idea that we remove government and unwanted third parties from the business affairs of employers, as between employers and employees and employers and unions; that we do not need third parties and we do not need governments getting in and tying them up in red tape and ensuring that they cannot get on with the work that they need to do to grow their profitability and to employ people. And, finally, there is the idea that, if government must legislate, it should not do so retrospectively. That is what ostensibly animates all those on the other side.

This bill which is before the House today offends each and every one of those propositions. Let me explain why. This bill attempts to put the Australian building and construction industry commissioner in a position where he can second-guess, vet and set aside—or certainly ensure that people who are employed under such an agreement never get a job on certain worksites in this country. Think about this for a moment. Two weeks ago the Leader of the Opposition gave a speech in the National Press Club of Australia.

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