Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Bill 2017. I move, as an amendment to the amendment proposed by the member for Gorton:

That all the words after 'whilst' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

'the bill contains some improvements to the existing law, they are not enough and the House declines to give the bill a second reading and calls on the Government to establish a National Independent Commission Against Corruption'.

If this government was serious about tackling corruption, we would have a national anticorruption commission—a national ICAC, a national corruption watchdog like they have in New South Wales. This government thinks that the only place that wrongdoing happens is on one side of the fence, in the industrial arena. They are kidding themselves. People across the country do not believe that either. Anyone who thinks that there is not corruption taking place amongst Australia's biggest corporations can only be turning a blind eye, which is what this government does. Under this government's watch we have had report after report of some of Australia's biggest companies bribing overseas regimes like Saddam Hussein's—bribing Saddam Hussein's regime in order to get a contract. We have had reports over a long period of time that subsidiaries in the Reserve Bank paid money to individuals overseas in order to secure deals; all of that happening under the federal government's watch. And, as everyone knows, at the state level in New South Wales, when broad-based national anticorruption commissions have the power to go and look under every rock, not just on one particular side of the political fence, but across the board, they find that there are Liberal MPs and Labor MPs who have not just had their snouts in the trough, but have actually been on the take. Some of them have rightly been prosecuted. That is what you get when you have a proper national anticorruption commission. That is why I am moving an amendment that all the words after 'whilst' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

The bill contains some improvements to the existing law, they are not enough and the House declines to give the bill a second reading and calls on the government to establish a national independent commission against corruption.

We have an opportunity here in this parliament to do what they have done in New South Wales and what the Australian people want: that is, establish a national anticorruption commission—a body that has the power to go and look under every rock at the federal level in the same way that they do at the New South Wales level. That body would have the power to investigate what the government says is its motivation for this bill, which is finding out if there is wrongdoing in the union movement—and if there is wrongdoing in the union movement, if there is corruption, then of course it does not matter where it happens, it should be rooted out and people should be brought before the courts and prosecuted and if they are found guilty they do their time or pay the penalty.

The point is that in Australia we are meant to have equality before the law; we are meant to have a system of laws in Australia where no-one is exempt from the law no matter how high an office they hold, and if you are on the take and receiving corrupting benefits it does not matter what position in society you hold you should be brought to account. What they have found in New South Wales is that when you start looking you find things. An argument put by some says that we do not need a national anticorruption commission at the federal level because there has been no suggestion of corruption by federal MPs or federal public servants or others who have dealings with the Commonwealth. In some ways that is the point—you do not know what is there unless you have a body that has the power to look. If you have a body that has the power to look, that is when the public starts to know exactly what is going on behind closed doors.

We have heard that within subsidiaries of federal government, bodies like the Reserve Bank, there have been longstanding accusations of improper payments being made—the kind of payments you would think that this government would be concerned about given this bill. There have been some limited attempts to investigate that, and I for one have been a member of parliamentary committees that have tried to get to the bottom of it. What you find when you start investigating is that a parliamentary committee is no substitute for a well-resourced watchdog that has the power to go in, get the documents, ask the tough questions and do the investigation that can then come up with the evidence that can be handed over to prosecutors.

What is the justification for saying that corrupting benefits have to be outlawed for one particular group in society but it is apparently okay everywhere else—it is bad if you are a union but it is all right if you are one of Australia's largest corporations or is all right if you are a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank or it is all right if you are a senior official with the Commonwealth? There can be no justification for saying that. So, here is a challenge to the government: if everything that you have said is what you genuinely believe, then expand this bill so that it becomes the start of a proper national commission against corruption—a national anticorruption watchdog. What I suspect is that the government does not actually care about corruption at all—the government turns a blind eye to it. If you have a blue collar, this government throws the book at you but, if you have a white collar, it turns a blind eye. We have accusation after accusation of wrongdoing at the top levels of the corporate sector and this government does nothing about it. When you delve into the provisions of this bill, it shows that this is nothing more than a political stunt. The provisions of this bill are strict liability provisions and they make it very easy to prosecute, and they come with very harsh penalties, of jail time, but the provisions are so incredibly broad that the likes of the Law Council have said they do not have a place in a country governed by the rule of law.

I know there are not many on the government side of the House who have ever spent a day standing up for Australian workers in their life, so how you actually do it might come as news to them, but what would happen if a union has been involved in a big industrial dispute with an employer and then says, at the conclusion of the dispute or part way through the dispute that has involved going to court, involved the expenditure of a huge amount of legal fees, 'We'll settle this dispute and we'll put it all behind us but we want you to pay our legal fees as part of that'?

Is that caught by this law? Maybe. Maybe that is caught by this law. Who knows? The provisions of this law are so broad that the legitimate day-to-day activity that takes place between employers and employees and their representatives is now all under a cloud. But that is probably not surprising, because that is exactly the government's intent. The government's intent has nothing to do with increasing the application of the rule of law in Australia and everything to do with using the power of this place to pick a political fight—to pick certain sides of the political fence and say: 'Well, we don't like what you're doing because sometimes you come and campaign against us in elections, when we try to take the rights of Australian workers away. We don't like that, so we're going to put restrictions on you that we would never dream of putting on our friends at the top end of town in the corporate sector.'

That is what this is about, and make no mistake. It is for that reason, because this bill is drafted so broadly and makes it so difficult for people to conduct what would otherwise be lawful activity, that I will not be supporting it. And it is also because it is crystal clear that the government is passing up the opportunity to establish a national anticorruption watchdog that is broad based, that this cannot be supported.

So here is an invitation to the government: take this bill away, start again and come back with a bill that is applied to everyone in society—including all of us here in parliament. Come back with a bill that is a national anticorruption commission and a watchdog so that every one of us here in parliament is put under the same level of scrutiny and obligation as you want to apply to unions. Come back with a bill that puts companies and the biggest corporations in this country under the same level of scrutiny; that puts our top public servants—people who work in the tax office—under the same level of obligation and scrutiny as you want to apply here to unions.

I bet the government will not do it, but I hope they do. And there is an opportunity now, here, with this amendment that I am moving, for people of goodwill in this chamber to say: 'Well, enough is enough. We need to establish that national anticorruption commission.' By supporting this amendment and telling the government to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that applies the rule of law, but that applies it as equally to politicians and boardroom directors as it does to union officials, they will be able to get some of these changes through. They might be able to get some of these changes through to deal with some of the concerns they have raised. As can be seen from the second reading amendment, we make the point that not only should people be held to account if they have done something that is wrong but that it is actually the Greens who have been leading the charge—not only for a national anticorruption commission but also for inquiry into why there are tens of thousands of people across the country who are young workers at Hungry Jacks, at McDonald's, at Coles and at Woolworths who are getting paid less than their award rates of pay. This is a good question. This is a very good question. Why is an 18-year-old who works Saturdays or Sundays at McDonald's, or nightshifts at Hungry Jacks, or at Coles or at Woolies, getting paid less than what is in the award? That is a very good question.

But we can fix that with a bill, and we have a bill in parliament to fix that—to stop the legal minimum conditions in this country from being undercut. If that is what they are really concerned about—and I have heard a few government members refer to that in their speeches—then let's fix it. Let us pass laws that make sure that young workers in this country are not done over. Let us make sure that every young worker in this country is entitled to be paid properly on weekends and at nights. If you are serious about that, if that is your motivation for this bill, then get behind the Greens paid protection bill. Then every parent who encourages their kids to go off and work at McDonald's, Coles or Woolies will know that they are getting paid properly and every young person who works there will get paid their penalty rates for having to work those hours that are convenient for us when we all turn up on Sundays at the supermarket but that are very inconvenient for the people who have to do it. We could fix that; let us fix it. If that is really your concern then pass our bill in the Senate. But I suspect it is not. I suspect this government does not care one jot about the tens of thousands of underpaid retail and fast food workers around this country. I suspect all the government cares about is using legislation for political points to try and beat up the Labor Party. If you do not support our bill in the Senate to protect young workers then everything that you have said here counts for nothing. You do not actually care about young workers and you do not actually care about people getting their penalty rates; you just want to use it as a political excuse. The test is now very clear: if the government supports this amendment then this bill will be off the table and we can come back and have a discussion about what the Australian people want and what this place needs, which is a national anticorruption watchdog. I commend the amendment to the House.

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