Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We all know 14 February of every year is Valentine's Day. Yesterday, Australia celebrated Valentine's Day. It is a very special day for lovers all over the country. But yesterday was not a good day for the CFMEU. Yesterday will go down in history as a very, very dark day for the CFMEU, and it was a day which will make the CFMEU finally sit up and take notice of the illegal conduct that they take part in on a daily basis. Not one but two very, very important decisions were handed down against the CFMEU yesterday. The first one was a decision on appeal from the full court of the Federal Court to the High Court of this country.

What that decision held was that unions whose officials break the law can be required by an order of the court to be prevented from paying the fines imposed on those officials. This was a very important decision because up until now, as we all know, when the CFMEU and its officials have broken the law, the CFMEU has gone and paid those fines for its officials. So there's been absolutely no deterrence, no consequence for the sort of illegal conduct that we continue to see the CFMEU and its officials partake in. But yesterday's High Court decision will put an end to that. Yesterday's High Court decision will give the courts the ability to impose orders which prevent the CFMEU from paying those personal fines. What that will mean is we will see a great degree of incentivisation coming on in building sites across the country. These people that continue to break the law, that flout the law, will now know that they will be in the gun for very, very significant fines that will be coming out of their pockets.

The second case that is very worthy of discussion is a decision of the Federal Court which imposed two—not one, but two—$500,000 fines against the CFMEU for breaching secondary boycott provisions. This is very important. They were the largest fines ever imposed under the Fair Work Act. The CFMEU is on notice that the ABCC will continue to police the law—

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