Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am not as au fait on the sugar industry or the Productivity Commission's report as the member for Kennedy is or certainly the Deputy Prime Minister is, so I will defer to the Deputy Prime Minister to speak on behalf of the government in the near future on that. But in terms of this actual suspension of standing orders motion, the government will not be supporting a suspension of standing orders to debate the member for Kennedy's motion because we have our own significant legislative agenda that we want to keep debating in the House of Representatives tonight. Of course, the next item of business to be debated is the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Bill 2017, with puts into effect the recommendations from the Heydon royal commission. The member for Bendigo knows all about corrupting benefits, because she is a CFMEU member in this House. I am not sure of the union of the member for Bass, but he is certainly a former union leader and delegate who supports the union movement. I certainly would not make any accusations against the member for Bass about taking corrupting benefits, but he supports a leader, as does the member for Rankin, who was knee-deep in corrupting benefits issues when he was the secretary and the national secretary—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

The member for Rankin interjects on me, but the simple reality is that the member for Rankin, the member for Bass and the member for Hunter sit quietly on the benches while the government gives example after example of the kind of corrupting benefits that we would outlaw through the legislation that is the next item of business on the agenda. That is why standing orders should not be suspended, because we want to move to the corrupting benefits legislation to ensure that people like the member for Bass, who is now leaving the chamber, hanging his head in shame—the member for Bass is running out of the chamber, embarrassed by his association with the Leader of the Opposition, as should members of the Labor Party on the frontbench be embarrassed about their association with the Leader of the Opposition, because the next item of business is the corrupting benefits legislation.

The government would much rather talk about the corrupting benefits legislation and deal with the issues raised by the member for Kennedy around the Productivity Commission in due course than allow us to be thrown off course when we want to deal with the corrupting benefits legislation. There are litanies of examples—the member for Bass knows what they are—where the Leader of the Opposition, when he was the secretary of the AWU in Victoria or the national secretary of the AWU in Australia, was involved in negotiations and signed enterprise bargaining agreements with businesses that were close to the AWU. He did not personally take money, but his union took money and benefited from those arrangements that they had with various businesses when he was in charge of the AWU.

Let's have a look at a few of those. One of those, of course, was Visy Industries—a very good business. It gave $200,000 in 40 payments to the AWU in the period when the Leader of the Opposition was the state secretary in Victoria. Now, why were they in 40 payments? Can the member for Bass explain why they were in 40 secret payments to the AWU? Why were they being disguised? If it was all entirely above board, if there was absolutely no reason to hide these particular payments, why were these payments made secretly from Visy Industries to the AWU in that period? It might have had something to do with the fact that they were negotiating six enterprise bargaining agreements at the time. But that is not the only example. There was also, of course, Alcoa. Alcoa gave $90,000 in eight secret payments to the AWU between 2005 and 2006, while the Leader of the Opposition was the state secretary or the national secretary. The member for Bass might want to explain why those payments were disguised in eight small payments that were made to the AWU, without being revealed to their members, while they were negotiating five enterprise bargaining agreements.

The House should move on to the government's business, in this case, the corrupting benefits legislation, rather than deal with the motion moved by the member for Kennedy.

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