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

The member for Gorton has moved to disallow the Code for the Tendering and Performance of Building Work 2016. The member for Gorton's private member's business motion is yet another example of Labor's rank hypocrisy and its outright subservience to the CFMEU. It is absolutely undeniable that the Labor Party and, in fact, the Leader of the Opposition, are owned lock, stock and barrel by the CFMEU. My sources in the building and construction industry inform me that the CFMEU are white-hot angry with the opposition leader and the Labor Party for their failure to stop the reintroduction of the ABCC and the building code, because they know that the implementation of these measures has resulted in a severe disruption of their illegal and corrupt conduct.

I am one of the few people in this place who understands the building and construction industry. I have worked in the industry as a carpenter, a builder, a mediator, an adjudicator and a barrister in construction law. I have given 30 years of my working life to the industry. It has been good to me and my family, as it has been good to many families around this country. But I have seen firsthand the best and the worst that the industry can bring. I have personally been subjected to threats and intimidation by the loyal thugs of the then Builders Labourers Federation. The Builders Labourers Federation was the precursor to the CFMEU. That group of lawless individuals was so bad that Prime Minister Hawke deregistered it. The CFMEU entered into the equation, and they have not changed their tune—not one iota.

On the other side of the House, who has actually worked in the building industry? I do not mean working as a shop steward, union delegate or organiser. On the other side of the House, who has swung a hammer, dug trenches or built things in the building industry? I would suggest that not one person has worked on the tools. Those opposite do not care about the workers—the mums and dads—who struggle every day to make a living in the nation's third-largest employment sector. Those opposite are interested in trying to appease their union masters that have donated $10 million in recent years to the ALP election coffers.

To all the mums and dads out there working on every building site, I am talking to you right now. Believe it or not, there are mums and dads out there listening right now.

An honourable member: They are turning it off.

No, they are not turning it off; they are listening, and I am talking to them right now. I am suggesting to you that the CFMEU has no interest whatsoever in your welfare or your work conditions. All they want is your union membership. All they want is your money and the power that enables them to wield over their political arm, the Australian Labor Party.

The member for Calwell's private member's business motion, which seeks to disallow the building code, should be seen for what it is—a clumsy attempt made by both the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Gorton to try and re-enliven the protection racket that has been waged by the CFMEU, underwritten and supported by the Labor Party federally and throughout the country, particularly in my home state of Queensland. You see, the Labor Party have to be seen to be trying to prevent the reintroduction of the rule of law on Australian building sites, but we on this side of House will not stand for that. We will fight tooth and nail against any suggestion whatsoever to try and reintroduce the lawlessness that has sat in the industry since the ABCC was last abolished.

I want to take this opportunity to give the House a little bit of a history lesson here. The ABCC was established by Prime Minister Howard in 2005 but, unfortunately, it was abolished by the Leader of the Opposition in 2012 at the behest—no, at the demand—of the CFMEU. During the seven years in which the ABCC operated, productivity in the construction industry increased by 20 per cent. Since its abolition, it has flat lined. Since the ABCC was abolished, the rate of disputes in the sector increased by 43 per cent, even while in other industries the rate of industrial disputes declined by 32 per cent. Prior to the ABCC, industrial disputes in the construction industry were at five times the all-industry average, but the other side say: 'Nothing to see here. It has got nothing to do with the ABCC.' During the ABCC's operation, disputes fell to double the average. Since its abolition in 2012, disputes have again risen to around five times the average. The building code works in tandem with the restored ABCC to fix a major problem in our third-largest industry, the building industry.

The CFMEU is notorious for bullying, intimidation and lawlessness in the industry. What some people do not understand—clearly those opposite do not understand—is that the high rate of industrial disputation adds cost to the cost of public infrastructure and private infrastructure. The building of schools, bridges, roads, hospitals all significantly increased. There is some talk about these increases being 30 per cent, but I believe, and my own evidence has shown me, that that figure is a gross underestimate. My figures demonstrate that the cost of lawlessness in the building and construction industry adds costs somewhere between 60 per cent and 100 per cent, particularly of public infrastructure.

I can see some there shaking their heads on the other side. They do not want to believe it. Open your eyes, do some investigations yourselves and see what the CFMEU are doing to this country; they are destroying this country because the increased costs—

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