Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion put by the member for Fisher. The use of deceitful and corrupt practices in the trade union movement has meant that honest Australian workers have been lied to, deceived, and represented to a standard that would flatter Dennis Denuto. While Dennis Denuto's shortcomings can be explained by general incompetence, the poor representation of unions is the product of self-interest and greed. This greed not only leads to poor outcomes for workers, it leads to poor outcomes for Australian taxpayers. The trade union royal commission laid bare a long list of inexcusable instances of union misconduct and corruption. This included bribery, extortion, and secret corrupting payments to unions in exchange for cutting workers' entitlements and rights.

One of the worst offenders when it comes to secret corrupting payments is the Leader of the Opposition. During his time as the national secretary of the AWU, he was part of the furniture in a culture of corruption and deception. His agenda entailed advancing two key interests: his own interest and that of the Labor Party—let's face it, advancing the Labor Party was also about advancing himself. In 2005, he signed up the entire membership of the Australian Netball Players' Association to a union and invoiced them $9,000 without their knowledge. This was also—since the AWU would have more votes in Labor Party preselections—nothing but self-interest. In 2007 he donated $25,000 of union workers' money to his own election campaign. The Labor Party may call this politics. The Australian people call this dishonesty—at best, theft and, at worst, dishonest. The Leader of the Opposition has been a case in point for reform of the union movement, his actions showing its deep-seated culture of lawlessness and corruption. Despite the Leader of the Opposition having left the unions, they continue where he left off.

The AWU have doctored invoices to conceal the fact that $25,000 was used to bolster memberships and the AWU's influence on the Labor Party. Recently, the AWU confirmed that the Leader of the Opposition was personally behind the $100,000 donation to the left-wing group GetUp!–members' money, meant to support them, being ploughed into rent-seeking unions and political lobby groups.

It would be difficult to forget the instance when the Leader of the Opposition rid some of Australia's low-paid workers of their paid benefits and conditions in return for secret payments made from Cleanevent. During his reign at the AWU, Mr Shorten was actively involved in negotiating lower penalty rates for big business to benefit the unions, but he is strongly against giving the same level of benefits to small Australian businesses. The Labor Party wants to ensure that small businesses pay higher penalty rates than the big businesses that they do secret deals with.

Enabling trade unions to continue their dishonesty, theft, fraud and corruption makes the life of Australia's most vulnerable workers even harder. These workers have the right to expect transparency and truth from their union. Labor's decision to continue voting against protecting Australian workers shows the true colours and moral bankruptcy of the Labor Party. They fought against the Turnbull government's ABCC to end lawlessness on building sites. They fought against making unions accountable to their members in the same way that companies are accountable to their shareholders. They fought against ending secret corrupting payments to make sure unions can't sell off workers' rights for 30 pieces of silver. Perhaps the member for Maribyrnong would be better named 'Judas'.

The Turnbull government's crusade against union corruption from the re-establishment of the ABCC to reforms to registered organisations and eliminating corrupting payments will ensure that Australian workers come first, not the Labor Party or their mates. To the union thugs out there who think it's over: it's only just begun. The Turnbull government is now turning its focus to stopping industry super funds giving $22 million a year of your retirement savings to unions, to give to the Labor Party. This government will not stop until unions do what they were made for: protecting workers, not lining their own pockets and those of the Labor Party.

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