Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to put my grave opposition to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, which is before the House tonight. Let's be clear from the start: Labor does not support corruption or misconduct of any kind from anyone, whether they hold a position of power in a union, in a bank or in a kindergarten. We do support appropriate penalties for those who do the wrong thing. But this bill isn't about ensuring integrity, as its name might attempt to suggest. It's just the latest dirty volley in the Turnbull government's relentless war on unions.

The measures in this bill are neither appropriate nor fair. They are an outrageous and egregious imposition on the ability of unions to undertake their important business of protecting workers in Australia. The provisions in this bill are heavy-handed and they set the stage for unprecedented interference in the democratic functions of registered organisations. They dramatically and unfairly expand the ways that a registered organisation can be placed into administration. They open the door to big business, the minister or even lobbyists to influence whether someone is able to hold office in a union. They interfere with the fundamental right of workers to determine the structure of the organisations they choose to represent them. They very likely contravene important international treaties on human rights. For all these reasons, they represent a very real threat to the health of our free democratic society.

The government has fundamentally failed to make the case that there is any sort of systemic problem to justify the sorts of draconian measures it is proposing in this legislation. Of course, those opposite like to pretend that they are merely faithfully implementing the recommendations of the royal commission into trade unions. However, we need to recognise that the royal commission was thoroughly discredited as a political exercise on the day it was revealed that the man who headed up that royal commission had accepted an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser. Regardless of that, this legislation goes well beyond what was recommended by the royal commission.

The Turnbull government will also tell you that this bill evens up the scales and imposes the same rules on unions and their officials which companies and their directors are required to adhere to. For a start, we should recognise that unions and corporations aren't the same in their nature, purpose or resourcing, and they shouldn't be treated as though they are. But, even if they were, the government's claim of legislative equivalence is demonstrably and unquestionably false.

Let's look at a few examples. Firstly, there is the disqualification regime proposed in schedule 1, where an application to disqualify someone from holding office in a union can be placed by the minister or anyone with 'sufficient interest'. What does 'sufficient interest' mean and who could satisfy the criteria? Conceivably, it could mean that an employer, an employer organisation or even a lobbyist could bring an application to disqualify someone from holding a union office. This is a serious infringement on the right of members to choose and democratically elect the people who will represent them, and it opens the door to claims being lodged for purely political reasons. This far exceeds any measure in corporate legislation. It won't surprise you to hear that the government has failed to include any safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. The government's hypocrisy here is breathtaking. Yet again, it is a case of one rule for unions and another for the government's mates in big business. You only need to look at the hands-off approach that the government has taken to the terrible instances of corruption in the recent Commonwealth Bank scandal to see where its loyalties lie.

Schedules 2 and 3 of the bill fundamentally change the rules around defining and administering so-called dysfunctional organisations and placing them into administration or deregistering them. Under the proposed legislation, members of a union could see their union disbanded based on the conduct of their officials, even if that conduct happened without the members' knowledge. In the corporate sector there is no equivalent. A company cannot be shut down because of the actions of a corrupt director, and nor should it be. Union members will be forced to pay the price for the actions of a person, which they knew nothing about and had no power to change.

The rank double standard continues with the proposed public interest test around mergers. This is a blatant political response to the planned amalgamation of the MUA and the CFMEU. Coincidently, I understand this bill was released the very week after the government met with 30 oil, gas and mining executives, who reportedly called for a stop to this merger. The current provisions of the Fair Work Act already provide clear process for amalgamations to occur. Having no legitimate basis in the existing legislation to shut down amalgamations, the government had to make something up. Here we are discussing the proof of the Turnbull government's unfailing obedience to its big business masters. The government is trying to pretend that this is the same test that is applied to corporations that want to merge. Again, this is not true. The test imposed on company mergers looks solely at competition, which is clearly irrelevant to unions. In contrast, the test the government poses looks at unions' records of complying with the law. Corporations can have appalling records of not complying with the law and still not be prevented from merging.

The fact that this measure is retrospective reveals beyond a shadow of a doubt the government's true agenda: to shut down the merger of the MUA and the CFMEU by any means possible. Yet again, we see evidence that the government believes in one rule for the unions and yet another for everyone else, just as all the other measures in this bill are transparent attempts to limit the ability of unions to undertake the important work that they do. Make no mistake: we're getting into dangerous and disturbing territory here. We need to be very wary of the combined impact of the Abbott-Turnbull government's ongoing assaults on unions and the impact that's having on the fabric of our society and the health of our democracy.

Despite the deceitful smear campaign those opposite have engaged in ad nauseam, unions perform a critical role in a free and fair society. They provide a check against the power of corporations and they help to even the inevitable power imbalances between employees and employers, particularly for vulnerable workers and those on low incomes. They help to ensure that workers get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and, in doing so, lift the conditions for the whole workforce. A recent International Monetary Fund study found a decline in union membership is a significant factor in the share of national income that employees receive, which in turn is inextricably linked with inequality. Greater inequality threatens growth for the entire nation. Countries with free and active union movements also have more transparent and representative forms of government. But of course the Turnbull government have proven again and again that they don't care about transparent, fair governance, and they clearly don't care about addressing inequality, what with their $650 billion handout to big business, which is funded by ripping services away from the most vulnerable Australians. What they do care about deeply, however, is making it as difficult as humanly possible for unions to function effectively. At every opportunity, those opposite impugn and vilify unions while they use every dodgy trick in the book to shackle their operations.

But there's something much deeper and much more malignant going on here. To view this as just a war on unions misses the point. The government doesn't hate unions, per se; it just hates what they do—which is to fight for fair pay and conditions. The war on unions that is visible for all to see disguises the government's real target, and that is Australian workers. Of course, unions are often the last line of defence to support workers and help them fight for their rights. If workers can't unite to advocate for their own interests, it makes the government's job of driving down pay and conditions a whole lot easier. The real enemy is workers and the real motivation is to weaken their rights, slash their pay and smash their ability to fight back by organising.

This is a government that is actively hostile to Australian workers at every opportunity. Of course, the government have ruthlessly gone after unions, but that's just the beginning. They also put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing against increasing the minimum wage. They support cuts to Sunday penalty rates for up to 700,000 low-income workers. They have actively fostered a shifting balance of power in industrial relations, which has emboldened too many employers to avoid their workplace obligations. They delayed superannuation increases and froze compulsory superannuation contributions, which were legislated to increase steadily to 12 per cent but are now stuck at 9.5 per cent. They savagely cut staff from key frontline government agencies, reducing services and leaving thousands of remaining workers waiting for a pay rise more than three years on.

The Turnbull government's war on workers isn't just cruel; it's also economically reckless. Wages growth is now at record lows, but the government is obsessing on legislation that will undermine workers and stall wages growth even further. Even the Treasurer himself has publicly recognised the dire implications for our national economy of our stagnating wages. But, staggeringly, he's chosen to continue on the very path that has contributed to this appalling situation.

While the explanatory memorandum for the bill promised to 'promote democratic governance in the interests of members of registered organisations', it does exactly the opposite. In fact, there are very real concerns about whether this legislation contravenes Australia's international commitments, which Australia's been a signatory to for decades. In its Human rights scrutiny report: report 9 of 2017, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights raises serious concerns about the human rights implications of this bill. The committee said:

The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 (the bill) contains a number of schedules which impact on the internal functioning of trade unions.

The right to freedom of association includes the right to form and join trade unions. The right to just and favourable conditions of work also encompasses the right to form trade unions. These rights are protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The interpretation of these rights is informed by International Labour Organization (ILO) treaties, including the ILO Convention of 1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize (ILO Convention No. 87) and the ILO Convention of 1949 concerning the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (ILO Convention No. 98). ILO Convention 87 protects the right of workers to autonomy of union processes including electing their own representatives in full freedom, organising their administration and activities and formulating their own programs without interference. Convention 87 also protects unions from being dissolved, suspended or de-registered and protects the right of workers to form organisations of their own choosing.

A number of measures in this bill, by limiting the ability of unions to govern their internal processes, engage and limit these rights.

The report goes on to outline some specific concerns with many of the measures contained in this bill. Let's be clear: the human rights committee is not prone to making frivolous claims or acting on a political agenda. These are no small matters: in fact they are very grave incursions, which we in this place should take very, very seriously. If the government really cares about acting in the interests of Australian workers, it should protect their rights by pulling this bill and stopping the vicious attacks on the organisations that represent them.

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