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

I'm a builder, so there you go, shut down. Unfortunately, however, as we know, today's CFMMEU gets much worse than simply proposing unproductive and unfair rules like this. Just a few days ago we saw the latest in a seemingly endless procession of fines imposed on the CFMMEU for unlawful behaviour. No amount of financial penalties, it seems, is enough to make these recidivist law-breakers reconsider their constant contraventions. There's an irony to this motion coming, as it does, in the wake of this latest judgement. The member for Kingsford-Smith asks the House to recognise the ILO's role in promoting freedom of association, while, all over Australia, it's a freedom that the CFMMEU consistently denies to workers in the construction industry. In the most recent case, a CFMMEU official, Kevin Pattinson, defied that right by preventing an electrician and a young apprentice from working on a site at Monash University, because they were not members of the union. As Justice Snaden said:

It is bad enough that it should so casually intrude upon rights of free association so valued by societies of conscience; much worse that it should do so, yet again, in deliberate defiance of the law that it has been told time and time again that it must obey.

I doubt the fines of $69,000 imposed by the court will do anything to stem the tide of CFMMEU law breaking—$16 million of previous fines have not. As Justice Snaden pointed out, there is a 'long list of judicial officers whose exasperated admonitions appear to have been met with studied indifference'.

Victorian state secretary John Setka is reported to have been dismissive of judges who:

… call us criminals [and] all sorts of things [and] fine us millions of dollars [despite having] probably never done a day’s work in their li[ves].

If Mr Setka and his co-conspirators in the CFMMEU do not want their organisation to be called criminal, I would suggest that a simple remedy exists: stop behaving like criminals, learn to obey the laws of the country and get back to work. This week Mr Setka is taking part in the CFMMEU's national conference in Adelaide. I understand he's trying to bring the South Australian branch of the union under his own branch's control. God help the country and God help the currently successful and growing construction industry in South Australia if his empire building is allowed to go on.

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