Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad you asked. I will not sing it, but I will articulate it because it is so apt and I could not have said it better than the King. I will refrain from the movements that go with the song and I will refrain from singing the song, despite, perhaps, some demand from my great friend and comrade, the member for Fenner! But it goes like this:

A little less conversation, a little more action please

All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me—

or anyone else, I might say—

A little more bite and a little less bark

A little less fight and a little more spark

Well, wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice in this instance, in relation to the Heydon royal commission, in relation to the small-amount credit contract, in relation to the Conde review and in relation to reforms to the Australian Consumer Law?

But let me be clear: this side of politics will never stand for any form of corruption in any way and in any shape. We will support legislation that is properly drafted that applies to registered organisations. But you have to be very sceptical about the Prime Minister's motivation here. Quite frankly, this is a do-nothing or, at best, high-taxing, highly squibbing government which has shown form in this as recently as the budget the other night. It took no action to respond in this case to any of Dyson Heydon's recommendations—not before the double dissolution election and not after it, and not even when this parliament was debating the two antiworker pieces of legislation that were the Prime Minister's justification for taking this nation to the polls.

The Turnbull government, this Prime Minister's government, did nothing in response to these recommendations—nothing, that is, until they realised that they were on the wrong side entirely. They were on the wrong side entirely when it came to cutting penalty rates. Some who are more cynical than I might have the temerity to suggest that such a move might be an attempt at a smokescreen to distract everyday Australians, working people and also the trade unions representing them from what we really see here. They are a government that are entirely content to leave the top end of town, businesses making millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars in turnover, alone or, even worse, not even leaving them alone but handing them a tax cut to incentivise them to continue the practices that they are currently undertaking—without the threat of a royal commission, I might add.

One has to ask: is this just cynicism writ large? We see a government, without the blink of an eye, happy to commit $46 million of taxpayers' funds to uncover nothing, perhaps, but to distil 79 recommendations to the three recommendations that are the subject of this legislation. It is willing to fork out $64 billion—I think that is what we are up to—in relation to tax cuts to the big end of town, an all-time high. Luckily, we are finishing up today or it might be more tomorrow! This is in relation to appeasing them about continuing to undertake the practices they are undertaking at the expense of workers, who are copping a pay cut every Sunday that they go to work and every public holiday that they go to work—every time they actually try to do their bit to put food on the table for their families.

Is this the sort of government that really has fairness at its heart? It is really interesting that, before spending $200,000 on a focus group to tell it which way it needs to aim in terms of its values, we did not really hear much about fairness from this government. If anything, we heard precisely the opposite and we saw even worse. You just cannot help but wonder about the political motivation driving this Prime Minister when, faced with Labor's private member's bill to preserve take-home pay and to protect penalty rates, he is all of a sudden struck with an urgent need to present and introduce this bill. Extraordinarily, this bill was introduced and brought on for debate one week after Labor's bill. There was no action of any description for more than 12 months and then suddenly this government gave this bill priority. The question becomes: what has this government shunted to the back of the line to make way for this bill? It is very clear. I have already alluded to the plethora of reviews that are sitting there growing old, gathering dust, that should be the subject of legislation straightaway. If we ever needed any more confirmation that this government is more concerned with saving its political skin than standing up for vulnerable and low-paid Australian workers we have it here writ large.

There has been pitiful consultation in relation to this bill. The terms of the new offences differ from the model legislation recommended by Dyson Heydon. They differ from existing bribery and corruption offences relating to public officials in the Criminal Code. And because they are different one really wonders how much confidence one can have in this legislation and how sure one can be that it does not unfairly target workers. The questions then become: Who is next? Who lines up next? Who is in the frame next? It is certainly not big business, it is certainly not the banks—despite the rhetoric that this government tries so desperately to wheel out day and day again. We know who is next. It is schools—they are next. It is hospitals—they are next. It is mums, dads, kids and the elderly who are delaying seeing doctors, and delaying seeing specialists because there is not a lift on this Medicare freeze. It is those who would otherwise be in receipt of benefits under the NDIS—they are next. We see the proof of the pudding in this budget. We see the proof of the pudding in this legislation. We will not see any sign of things to change until we see a change of government.

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