Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

[inaudible] orders need to be suspended. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much—I have the call now—to those opposite. There are over 150 amendments—150 amendments to their own bill! It's a laugh. It's a joke. It's pretty obvious that it's deeply, deeply flawed. There's a long list of organisations who don't support this: the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Council of Small Business Organisations, the Minerals Council, the National Farmers Federation, the Australian Retailers Association, the National Retail Association, the Civil Contractors Federation. And I will add my two local chambers of commerce to that, thanks very much. Through this bill the government wants to make radical changes to industrial relations in our country with no mandate. There was no mandate before the election. This was not taken to the election for the Australian people to decide on.

The abolishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission simply gets Labor off the leash with no watchdog to rein in their bad behaviour. When Labor last abolished the ABCC two-thirds of working days lost to industrial action were in the construction industry, and the average rate of industrial action was nearly five times the average of every other industry. It caused the rate of disputes in the construction sector to be increased by 46 per cent, compared with a 31 per cent decline across all other industries. Australians might remember that schools and hospitals cost taxpayers up to 30 per cent more, because of the huge amount of working days lost due to industrial action on building sites. Further, the role of the Registered Organisations Commission is also crucial to ensure that their organisations and their officers are accountable to their members.

We've had more than 30 years of prosperity and stability under enterprise bargaining in this country and Labor want to upend all of that into chaos with the reintroduction of compulsory multi-employer bargaining. The Productivity Commission's recent interim report warned that a hit to productivity and wages and conditions is set for a group of firms in one-size-fits-all approach to business practices. It's just not good enough. This bill is bad for the economy, it's bad for employers, it's bad for Australian families and it's bad for small Australian businesses. We call on the Labor government to withdraw this bill.

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