Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Of course we are a government on the side of those Australians who have money in workers benefit funds and want to see that money properly spent on workers benefits and properly accounted for. Why do we need this transparency? Yesterday, we found out that the Protect workers benefit fund had transferred, in two years, $45 million to the ETU, $10.4 million of which went to NECA, an employer organisation. The bill before the House would simply require proper accounting for what goes into the benefit funds, what comes out and how it's spent so that we can all actually know that it is spent to the benefit of workers. The shadow minister's position is stated this way. He says:

… I don't think it's legitimate to say … we need more scrutiny over the jointly managed funds, where all the money has been going to specific programs that workers benefit from …

But that is the question, isn't it? Is all the money going to specific programs that workers benefit from?

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