Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

the ABCC spent $2.15 million on external legal fees—$2.15 million. Very few active cases of the ABCC's involve the underpayment of workers or late payments of subcontractors. Instead we see cases such as a case where $488,562 was spent pursuing a building company over the Eureka flag being displayed on a worksite; a case where $495,203 was spent taking a case to the High Court unsuccessfully, where a union demanded a women's toilet on a worksite; and another failed case, costing $298,127, prosecuting two union officials for having a cup of tea with a mate.

Those opposite, when in government, did so little to increase the supply of housing stock, especially affordable housing and public housing. They will only raise these concerns when a vestige of their ideological hubris such as the ABCC comes under threat. Labour productivity under the years of the ABCC was nothing to write home about. This is despite many of the arguments of the coalition being centred around improving productivity. The name of the legislation itself was the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill, after all.

As the member for Bendigo recently mentioned, labour productivity went down 2.4 per cent in 2017-18. It went down 2.6 per cent in 2018-19 and went down again by 2.6 per cent in 2019-20. This Labor government has already made the first steps to fulfil this election commitment, whilst also consulting with employer and building industry groups and peak bodies, unions and state and territory ministers for workplace relations. It's about time that the coalition considered the Australian Building and Construction Commission to soon be 'dead, buried and cremated'.

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