Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. Up-front, I declare that I'm a proud member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, and I have received the support of many unions and their members over the last decade or so as a member of this parliament, including the CFMEU; United Voice; my old union, the Independent Education Union; the QNMU; the Queensland Teachers' Union; the CPSU and the mighty Meat Industry Employees Union, to name but a few. I'm proud to be connected with the men and women of the union movement.

This bill is yet another attack by the Turnbull government on hardworking Australians. It is a further attempt to shackle the union movement and prevent workers from taking their rightful place at the bargaining table, where employees and employers work out their working conditions together. This Turnbull government has been relentless in its attacks on unions. Those opposite fundamentally do not understand the role of unions in Australian society. I feel it necessary to remind the chamber of how different the working lives of Australians would be but for the advocacy of the union movement over the last two centuries, both here and abroad. Urban Australian workers in the early 19th century were working very long hours for very low pay. The first organised unions were formed to address that unfairness. Midway through the 19th century, stonemasons won the right to an eight-hour week, when their society forced the issue by giving an ultimatum to employers. It was not until 1920 that all Australian workers enjoyed that right of an eight-hour day.

Queensland especially has a proud history of unions fighting for workers' rights. The 1894 shearers' strike, though unsuccessful, was a turning point for the union movement in Queensland and saw the formation of the labour movement's political wing, the great Australian Labor Party. The strike, in response to the Pastoral Employers' Association agreeing to lower the wages of shearers, extend their working hours and retain the right to withhold their wages until the end of the shearing season, culminated in the conservative colonial government sending in more than 1,000 armed soldiers and special constables. After some of the strike leaders were arrested and sent to St Helena Island, and with the real threat of bloodshed, the unions called an end to the strike.

But this was the turning point for unions and the working class—the point at which they realised they needed a voice, they needed to have the working man's voice and later the working woman's voice heard in politics, so that Australian laws reflected not only the pastoralists' interests but the interests of every Australian. Just five years later Queensland had the world's first Labor government. Sadly, Anderson Dawson's government only lasted six days, from 1 December 1899, while the Tories sorted out their infighting. But it was a great start, and the labour movement has come a long way since then.

Unions are still vitally important for Australian workers. Even workers who are not members of a union benefit from the conditions fought for by union members. Unions are responsible for the precious working entitlements that we all take for granted, such as annual leave, sick pay, workers' compensation and health and safety standards, to name a few. Unions represent over a million workers in Australia but benefit millions more. Unions are just as important today in advocating for the rights of workers as they were in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The job of unions is never complete. Sadly, there will always be unscrupulous employers who will exploit their workers. Sadly, they can sometimes create a race to the bottom: the rogue outliers, the bad bosses, can create an uneven playing surface for their good boss competitors. We don't need to look too far to see modern examples of exploitation by well-known and respected companies. For example, Myer, where cleaners were paid well below award wages, denied penalty rates and superannuation and put in circumstances where they had no occupational health and safety protections. There was the case of 7-Eleven, where a Four Corners investigation showed evidence of gross underpayment, doctoring of pay records and threats of deportation. There was Pizza Hut, where delivery drivers were paid as little as $6 an hour. These are modern horror stories in the digital age. You don't have to look into too many dark corners to see modern slavery-type abuses and worse. Sadly, examples like these of exploitation of workers are not mentioned by those opposite. Unions have an important and continuing role to ensure that Australians can go to work in workplaces that are safe, that they can earn an honest day's wage and safely return home to their families and loved ones. In this economic climate the protection that unions provide to workers is even more important.

Australian workers are doing it particularly tough under this out-of-touch Turnbull government. Their wages are stagnant. Wages are at record low levels in terms of the share of GDP. Inequality is rising. Unemployment is still high and over 1.1 million Australians are underemployed. And then, to Prime Minister Turnbull's eternal shame, on his watch some of our lowest paid workers have had their take-home pay slashed through cuts in penalty rates. All of these factors combine to put Australian workers in a weakened bargaining position with their employers. It is particularly at times like this that union advocacy is vital to ensure that workers do not get exploited, that workers receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, that workers get the entitlements they deserve and that inequality is not being driven up by economic conditions and opportunistic employers or, worse, immoral employers, as we've heard with the phoenix company type activities—not illegal, but certainly immoral. Sadly, we also need to be aware of the criminal behaviour of some employers.

Labor has always said that it will not stand for wrongdoing or corruption in unions. We heard the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, say that again today after question time. He's said it many times. Where there is wrongdoing, it should be investigated and punished. I stand by this and personally repeat that position, particularly if a union official is exploiting their vulnerable members. Nothing makes a union supporter's blood boil more than seeing some low-paid employees being ripped off by somebody.

The Heydon royal commission into trade unions resulted in a single Queensland referral of a union official. That is a long way from the widespread and deep-seated misconduct in the union movement that Justice Heydon referred to in his report. Of course, even one referral of a union official is one too many. But we should also note that in Queensland the Heydon royal commission actually recommended more charges be laid against building industry executives than against anyone else. Yet bad bosses don't attract the ire of 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' and his caucus cronies. To put the number of referrals from the trade union royal commission into perspective, there are a total of 93 referrals across Australia relating to 45 persons or entities. Let's contrast that with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a royal commission called for by Prime Minister Gillard, which made 2,393 referrals to authorities. Now, that's a royal commission that we absolutely needed to have, and I'm very proud that it was a Labor government that made it happen.

Labor will always support legislation on its merits, but this bill has absolutely no merit at all. This is simply power politics. It is devoid of anything even resembling policy. This is a desperate government pursuing its ideological obsession with destroying unions, as the pressing weight of 21 bad Newspolls in a row signals the imminent end of Mr Turnbull's time at the Lodge. This is according to his own published criteria. This bill actually breaches international law. It contravenes International Labour Organization core convention 87 on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise, 1948.

Under the provisions of this proposed bill, registered organisations and officers will be faced with obligations far in excess of those faced by corporations and company directors. The measures in the bill exceed any recommendations of the Heydon royal commission. From a legal perspective, there are extremely concerning provisions in this bill. For example, an application for disqualification of an officer can be brought by anyone with sufficient interest. There is no other requirement for standing necessary. Once a ground for disqualification has been made out, the onus is on the officer to prove that it would be unjust to make the order for disqualification. There is no maximum term of disqualification; it is open to the court to impose any term.

The provisions of this bill impose much more onerous conditions on registered organisations than the comparable provisions of the Corporations Act impose on companies and their directors. For example, if a disqualified person continues to influence a registered organisation, the penalty is double the penalty of the equivalent provision in the Corporations Act. The regime for cancelling the registration of an organisation is far more expansive than the regime for winding up a company. The Corporations Act has no equivalent provision to allow for companies to be wound up due to a history of non-compliance with the law by its directors or shareholders.

The inequality that this bill would impose on registered organisations compared to the treatment of corporations under the Corporations Act is no more obvious than in the provision in this bill that would allow a union to have its registration cancelled if a group of members took unprotected industrial action, especially if something like a workplace death occurred and people were outraged. Contrast that to a corporation that can repeatedly treat their workers appallingly by non-payment of wages or entitlements, and even put lives at risk, but cannot be wound up for that behaviour. There is already a simple procedure for the amalgamation of registered organisations under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act. It requires a ballot of members and is conducted under the fair watch of the Australian Electoral Commission.

This bill proposes to amend these already appropriate provisions in relation to amalgamations. It is obvious that this is a direct attack on the proposed amalgamation of the CFMEU, the MUA and the TCFUA—the sailors and the textile and clothing workers. This proposed provision ignores the fact there are often great benefits to members for their union to amalgamate with another union. Amalgamations can reduce rent and utility payments, increase administrative efficiencies or better represent the interests of the union-member workers. This bill imposes unfair and onerous requirements on registered organisations who want to merge. It requires a public interest test that will take into account the organisation's record of complying with the law and the impact on employers and employees in the industry. These provisions are in sharp contrast to those for companies, which can merge with just one test imposed on them: that the effect will not substantially lessen competition in any market.

Labor supports tough penalties for those who break the law. Labor's 2012 amendments tripled the penalties for breaches of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act, as well as requiring education and training to be provided to officials of registered organisations about their governance and accounting obligations. We also required the disclosure of officials' remuneration and pecuniary and financial interests. We also enhanced the investigative powers available to Fair Work Australia, including the power to provide information to agencies, such as the Federal Police or state police. All that happened under a Labor government.

It is clear what this government's priorities are. They are not to support Australian workers or to support the importance of the unions who represent them. What this government is attempting to do with their legislative agenda is to destroy the ability of trade unions to organise and to bargain collectively. Even for this ideologically obsessed Turnbull government this bill is an overreach. It goes far beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission, and it goes beyond the government's own election announcements. I give a cautionary word to those opposite. I remember the 2004 election, when a bloke from my home town of St George got elected, a senator from Queensland called Barnaby Joyce. When he became a senator, that gave John Howard the numbers in the Senate to bring in Work Choices legislation. That was John Howard's Waterloo—or if you'd like another piece of military history, John Howard's 'bridge too far'. This piece of legislation will also spell the end for Mr Harbourside Mansion, as far as I can see. It goes way too far. It is extreme and dangerous. Prime Minister Turnbull has no mandate for this bill. He has only one agenda: to keep a hold on power. This will be his undoing. I do not support this legislation.

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