Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Withdrawal from Amalgamation) Bill 2024 is an important bill. It's an important bill for a number of reasons. First of all, it shows the abject failure of the government to defend the right of Australian workers to go about doing their job without being intimidated by union bosses. What we've seen is the worst kind of intimidation by John Setka and the CFMEU.

There are a couple of points to note here. First of all, while this bill goes a little way to addressing this, it does not go far enough, because the demerger power should be available to all unions across this country so that, when we see the type of lawlessness and thuggery that we're seeing at the moment, it can be dealt with. It is especially important when you look at the CFMEU, because a large part of the workforce represented by the CFMEU is those female workers who work in the textile industries. Why should they have to put up with the intimidation of John Setka and his thugs? Why should they have to be a party to that? Why shouldn't they be allowed to demerge? Why shouldn't other unions be in a position to be able to demerge when this type of lawlessness takes place?

It's also important in that it recognises once again that the government's approach of ceding so much power to union bosses is failing Australian workers right across the country. The reason we're seeing this, more than any other reason, is what has been happening to real wages since this government came to power. Real wages have gone down. What did the Prime Minister say before the last election? 'We're going to make sure that real wages go up.' Well, what has happened in the two years since Labor have been in power? It doesn't matter how they try and spin it by saying, 'Trajectories are looking positive.' I can tell you: Australian workers aren't worried about trajectories. What they are worried about are the actual facts, and the facts are these. In two years of Albanese Labor government, what has happened to real wages? They have gone down. And that is not what the Prime Minister promised—which, once again, shows that the whole industrial relations approach by Tony Burke, about saying to union bosses, 'We're going to give you unfettered power,' has not worked, because the real outcomes on the ground are that real wages, under this government, have fallen, and no amount of spin can get away from those facts.

Let's look at what the CFMEU have been doing with the unfettered powers that they've been given. The most recent example is that of the intimidation against Stephen McBurney. Let's look at Stephen McBurney. Stephen McBurney has umpired over 400 AFL games, as well as four grand finals. Now, as a passionate Richmond supporter, I cannot say that Stephen McBurney has always got every decision right—okay? But I can say that he has been dedicated to umpiring for a very long period of time and has been recognised as having excelled in his profession, because not every umpire gets to adjudicate on four grand finals. You have to be very, very good at your profession, and Stephen McBurney has shown that because he has been given the great honour of umpiring four AFL grand finals. Yet what do we see? Because he undertook lawful employment as head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was set up to provide for lawful activity on building sites, John Setka and the CFMEU are going after him. They're intimidating him. They're trying to say to him, 'You should not go about your lawful work.'

I think one of the most disappointing things—and there are a couple of disappointing things, but one of the most disappointing things—was the reaction of the Prime Minister when John Setka came out and said, 'We're going to try and intimidate Mr McBurney out of his profession.' The Prime Minister's response was really, really weak. Rather than saying to John Setka, 'There is no place for your language; there is no place for your intimidation,' and showing real leadership, the Prime Minister almost didn't want to comment on what was occurring. And that was pretty sad.

The other thing that is disappointing—and the two are tied, I think, and this is something that the Australian people need to recognise—is that the CFMEU continue to provide funds, donations, to the ALP. What real leadership would look like is having the Prime Minister stand up and say to John Setka: 'No prime minister will tolerate that type of language and that type of intimidation. And not only that; as a real show of leadership, we are now going to say to the CFMEU: "We will not take your money. If you are going to continue to use the tactics that you use—in many instances, breaking the law—then we will not take your money, because this type of behaviour cannot be tolerated."'

Yet have we seen the Prime Minister show that type of leadership? Sadly, no, we have not. And why? Because, whether we like it or not, the ALP is fully addicted to union donations and they cannot, even in an instance where you're seeing this type of intimidation, cut that umbilical cord between the union funds that flow into ALP coffers and the union influence that results in terms of dictating policy outcomes to the ALP Labor government as a result of that funding. It's time that the Prime Minister showed the type of real leadership that the Australian community is looking for, and stands up to John Setka and his union bovver boys, because we need it.

I'll end here: why is this important? Why is it really important that we have these demerger powers? Why is it really important that we should have these demerger powers across the board? It's important because in a cost-of-living crisis we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to help improve the real wage outcomes for Australian workers and to improve the costs that everyday Australians are paying at the moment for everything right across the board.

It's of particular importance at the moment when it comes to the construction industry, because one of the things that is occurring at the moment and is occurring at pace is the lift in housing prices. The sad reality is at the moment that for many, many young Australians, that dream of owning your own home is disappearing. It's disappearing because costs continue to rise within the construction industry, costs continue to rise for small businesses involved in the construction industry and costs continue to rise when it comes to major construction in the building industry.

What is one of the largest contributors to those costs? It is the CFMEU. The impost of regulation, the impost of intimidation and the impost of not been able to move without the unions coming down—especially on small businesses—is driving costs up and up and up in the construction industry. That is meaning that the price of building a home continues to rise. The price of building rental accommodation continues to rise, and that is taking that dream away from young Australians of owning their first home, of owning their first flat or of owning their first unit. That is the real crime of the Labor Party's addiction to union funds and to giving unions more and more power, especially to those bosses.

That is why we will support this bill and it's why we will put forward necessary amendments, because it's not only the demerger power that's needed for this one-off example with the CFMEU. It is needed across the board because we want to make sure that real wages go up—as the Prime Minister promised—but at the moment, sadly, they are going down. And we want to make sure that when it comes to that Australian dream, especially for young Australians, of being able to own your first home that we will be able to do the things that are necessary to make that dream a reality for young Australians—not what this government is doing, driving prices higher and higher and making that dream an unreality.

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