Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are again. It is the last sitting day and the government is again using the day to bash unions and not deal with the real matters that are pressing, such as meeting with Margarita, who is in the House today to meet with people to tell her story. Margarita is a hotel cleaner. Margarita works on Sundays. She earns about $30,000 a year and she is about to cop a $2,000-a-year pay cut. That is a big chunk of her pay. She has come to Canberra today to meet with the Prime Minister and he will not meet with her. She wants him to understand her story, but the government is not interested in meeting with real workers like Margarita. The government is not interested in supporting the amendment put forward by Labor on this bill, which calls upon the government to take seriously the effect that cutting penalty rates will have on low-paid workers. Instead, we have this bill before us. You have to question the timing. From the beginning, can I say that Labor will not stand for corruption in any form and that we support legislation that is drafted properly and applies to all companies and registered organisations. On this side of the House we do not tolerate corruption. You have to be sceptical and challenge the timing of this bill. It is well over 12 months since the Heydon report and recommendations were released. It happens at a time when we are having a debate about penalty rates, workers' rights and the minimum wage.

Let us just reflect for a moment on the Heydon report. This is the Dyson Heydon royal commission into trade unions, where, during the process of the royal commission, the commissioner involved agreed to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser before the commission had even wrapped up. All the funds raised at that Liberal Party fundraiser went directly back to the Liberal Party for their campaigning. We are not talking about a typical royal commissioner; we are talking about a royal commissioner that was involved or agreed to be involved in a Liberal Party fundraiser, so it was political from the beginning. This bill that is before us now is based upon three out of the 79 recommendations of that commission, and we have heard one speaker from the government—I am sure we will hear many more—stand up and use examples from that commission report about why this bill should be supported.

We heard the member for Dunkley yesterday have a go at the CFMEU about their drug and alcohol and safety committee. Let us focus for a moment on what the CFMEU is doing in this space. I have a picture here in front of me from their news centre, with John Setka and Shaun Reardon—two CFMEU officials from the Victorian branch—a health professional and management from Brookfield Multiplex. What brings this group together? It is a holistic approach to drug and alcohol policy. It is called the Building Industry Group. The union, in conjunction with Brookfield and health professionals, is rolling out the Australian-first Drug and Alcohol Management Program in one of the largest construction sites in Melbourne. The purpose of this is to allow construction workers to self-test before working on the job. Basically, it is a harm minimisation program. Its aim is to be anonymous, so that workers can self-test without fear of retribution. This then serves to decrease the risk that construction workers could put themselves and their colleagues at, and also provides them an opportunity for support and counselling. This program is innovative. It is a collaboration of unions working with an employer to encourage the workforce to self-test, so that if there is an issue, they can seek help and support. We know that construction is a dangerous industry and so the union in this case is being proactive in engaging.

This is just one of the many things that unions like the CFMEU do to make sure that make workplaces are safe, yet what we have seen from the government time and time again is this demonisation and politicisation of the union movement, whether it be in the ABCC debate or this debate. Let us just focus for a moment on how well the ABCC is going. In the last few weeks, since it has come back into action, we have had multiple media reports of Federal Court judges criticising the ABCC. In this report, 'Judge turns on ABCC for wasting time over "cup of tea" CFMEU incident' it says:

A federal court judge has blasted the Australian Building and Construction Commission for wasting time and taxpayers' money on taking two Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union officials to court for "having a cup of tea …

This is what the judge said:

This is all external forces that are beating up what's just a really ordinary situation that amounts to virtually nothing …

For goodness sake, I don't know what this inspectorate is doing.

The report continues:

He said when the ABCC "use[s] public resources to bring the bar down to this level, it really calls into question the exercise of the discretion to proceed".

This is the Federal Court saying back to the ABCC, a creation of this government, 'You're wasting our time; you're wasting the time of taxpayers.' This is what this government are focussed on. They have created an inspectorate about which our own Federal Court is saying, 'You're wasting our time; you're wasting the time of taxpayers.' This is not the only case. Last week we saw another article, published on 22 March, about a building case being thrown out. It said:

Taxpayers were left with a hefty legal bill after the ACT Supreme Court ordered the AFP to pay the bulk of the CFMEU's costs in a legal battle over an illegal raid on the union's Canberra office …

Monday's Federal Court decision is the latest legal setback for the ABCC, in its campaign … another judge last week sharply criticised for mounting a large and expensive case against the CFMEU over "virtually nothing".

This is what Federal Court judges are saying about your ABCC: lots of money being wasted, lots of the court's time being wasted on virtually nothing, wasting time over a cup of tea. That is the focus of this government. That is why we question this bill and that is why we are going to refer it to a Senate committee to really test its rigor. We have already seen the Federal Court's criticism of the ABCC: a waste of taxpayers' money, waste of time over virtually nothing.

And what is the ABCC pursuing these organisers for? We have had ministers stand up and say that dozens of CFMEU officials are facing criminal offences, and this is what they are dealing with. In the case of the cup of tea, the organiser had failed to give 24 hours notification of entering a site—an administrative error, a paper error. That is what it was. That is not a criminal offence. When people stand up here and say that that is a criminal offence, it is not. Failure to give 24 hours notice is an administrative error, a breach of the industrial relations. Let us not get carried away with the truth. It is a very long bow to draw. This is the problem that we have: a government that is fixated on prosecuting people who fail to submit a right of entry notice. That is not a major crime in this country, and it is completely the wrong focus for this government.

It is extraordinary that this bill was introduced and then brought on for debate one week later. There has been no action for 12 months, and now, because it suits them politically, it is being brought on. It damages their case to deal with corruption. The so-called corrupting benefits offences are broadly similar to existing Criminal Code offences of bribery of a public office, bribery of a foreign official and corrupting benefits. This is one of the reasons why we want to see this bill referred to the Senate, to see how it relates to other bills and if it is necessary or if it is conflicting.

We know that this government likes to politicise, likes to distract, likes to demonise those who stand up to make sure people's workplaces are safe. We have already seen the government this week vote against Labor's moves with the ABCC code to disallow sections in the Building Code that would have created jobs. They did not agree with our side of the House when we said, when workers and their employers agree to have clauses that encourage job creation, at least allow that to stay in an agreement. This government said no. Those opposite are not interested in seeing apprentices and apprenticeship ratios in construction workplaces—they have said that is prohibited content in a collective agreement. They are not interested in ensuring that we maximise local jobs over 457 visa workers or any other temporary visa workers, or in restrictions on labour hire—no, they voted against that so that is still part of the code. This is a government that will use anything they can to demonise their opponents.

Finally, on the amendment Labor has moved on penalty rates we are hearing more and more workers speak out about what the government's support for cutting penalty rates means. People earning $30,000 a year will lose $2,000 a year. These are low-paid workers. This government is now advocating restraint on increasing the minimum wage. Talk about a double whack for some of our low-paid workers. This government is not supporting these low-paid workers; it is advocating restraint in increases to the minimum wage. So Margarita is here right now in this building, and this government not only is standing by and letting her wages be cut by $2,000 a year but also is not willing to stand up and advocate and argue that her base rate should be increased. This is something that the government really misunderstands when we talk about the minimum wage—it is a floor, it is a safety net. When you calculate people's wages, you include Monday through to Sunday rates. One of the reasons people are so passionate about protecting their Sunday penalty rate is that their Monday to Friday rate is really low—really low. In some industries, where employers have had the ability to sit down with employees and their union to bargain a collective agreement, those workers are better off overall.

Time and again in question time we have seen the government stand up and have a go at the KFC agreement. Let me set the record straight there. The SDA, the principal union involved, sat down with KFC and the elected workplace delegates and negotiated a collective agreement which saw those workers overall be better off because they raised the Monday to Friday rates—the base rates. Full-time workers in KFC earn on average about $80 a week more than people who work for the award rate. You cannot just talk about the Sunday rate when you talk about penalty rates; you have to talk about the Monday rate, the Tuesday rate—you have to talk about what people take home. I urge the government to support Labor's amendment on take-home pay. I urge the government and all those opposite to stop engaging in union bashing, to stop hiding behind the dispatch box, behind parliamentary privilege, and to stop having a go at the very organisations that are calling upon them to do more for Australian workers—particularly those surviving on penalty rates. Margarita has worked in hotels for 30 years, and she is not alone—she is one of 700,000 low-paid workers in this country who are facing a pay cut because this government will do nothing to support them. It is a slippery slope, because we have already seen other industries' employer associations apply to Fair Work to reduce Sunday penalty rates. Clubs and hotels, cafes and restaurants have asked; beauty and hairdressing have asked—all low-paid industries, predominantly women working in low-paid industries who are now facing the prospect that if the Fair Work Commission starts to roll this out across industries they too will face a pay cut.

There is never a good time to talk about cutting wages for low-paid workers, but right now, when we have a government failing to protect those penalty rates, they should at least be standing up and starting to talk about increasing the minimum wage. The cost of living in Australia is going up, and those who are working hard but earning the same or less are falling further and further behind. I urge the government to sit back and think about what they are doing, to look at the politics of this. It just does not wash. Every time they stand up here and bag out a union, people know exactly what they are doing—just bagging out a union. They are not standing up for the workers in that union at all, despite the rhetoric.

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