Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am grateful to my friend the member for Wide Bay for proposing this important motion. He has spent his entire working life serving the people of Queensland, upholding the law with honour in the Queensland Police Service.

I have spoken often in this place about the terrible impact of union malfeasance on our entire community—the cost blowouts, the delays, the damage to productivity, the undermining of the rule of law, the intimidation, corruption and bullying. When I look at the vital public infrastructure in my electorate of Fisher that my constituents are so desperately crying out for, I think of all the billions of dollars we have wasted as a country in paying for the results of this lawlessness.

The Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce has been making a real difference in Queensland. As recently as December last year, its officers arrested and charged three men, including one prominent member of the CFMEU, over corrupt secret commissions. By withdrawing from this special task force , the Queensland state Labor government is accepting the loss of additional Federal Police officers, $1.8 million in funding for the state and casting aside vulnerable workers—the very workers that the unions are supposed to represent.

There is no doubt that the union movement has enjoyed preferential treatment and access to the Queensland Labor government. It is senior ministers have regularly met with the CFMEU, the ETU, the AFULE the AWU, the AMWU, the plumbers union and of course United Voice.

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