Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise as a proud Melburnian. There are many assessments about the size of Melbourne. On some assessments, Melbourne is already Australia's largest city, but, on most reasonable projections, it will certainly be Australia's largest city. If you go to forums that talk about the future of Melbourne, you will hear this sentence: 'By 2050, Melbourne will be the size of London.' Now, for Melbourne to get to the size of London and still be a place that is livable, that has enough housing, that has the infrastructure needed, that has enough quality schools, hospitals—and we have good hospitals, but would they still be able to manage a population that size?—and transport, and that preserves green space and stays within that proud ranking of being one of the world's most livable cities, is a significant challenge that requires the due attention of state and federal governments and, indeed, local councils.

But where are we at, now, in Melbourne? We heard evidence in this building from Aldi, the supermarket chain, that said that, when they have to build a store, there is a 30 per cent premium for building that in Victoria compared to the rest of the country. Where does that 30 per cent premium come from—to have construction cost so much in Victoria? What does that mean for our ability to meet all of the challenges that will be required, to have the infrastructure for a population the size of London in 2050?

A lot of people in this place are scared of having discussions and debates about what Australia will look like in 2050, including as to energy. We're having that debate now. This particular bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Withdrawal from Amalgamation) Bill 2024, is about that too. If we are to have, in Australia's largest city, a permanent premium of 30 per cent on building—and that can only grow—we have to ask, first: why?

I refer to an article in the Saturday Paper. These two paragraphs stood out to me. They talk about a meeting that happened in Festival Hall. For those from Melbourne, you know what Festival Hall is and where it is. The article says:

When Festival Hall first opened, in 1913, it quickly became known as "The House of Stoush"—a boxing and wrestling venue and then, later, a home to roller derbies. This week, thousands of Setka's construction workers arrived in their high-vis and union-branded hoodies for the meeting. To Setka's … satisfaction, they reached capacity and spilled out the doors.

In that meeting, we read:

The EBA was ratified by members, securing a 21 per cent pay rise staggered over the next five years …

That included conditions: that the right to raise union flags would be mandatory, and that union officials could enter sites without permission if a builder invited them.

For those of you from Melbourne, if you drive through my electorate on the North East Link, you'll see that all of the cranes are branded, as if a student has tagged their tag on a building with some graffiti. It's not your construction site; it's not the people of Melbourne's; it's the CFMEU's. By using those mandatory flags, they are saying who owns this town. It's theirs; it's not yours. Never forget: this isn't about class; this isn't about lifting people up—those are the talking points. This is about raw power and the exercise of power—not for your interests, but for their interests. And that power has only ever been constrained when the federal government has stood up to it.

What we have seen from this government is that, when that power should have been stood up to, the opposite has happened—and, even then, the minister has had to acknowledge that, when we've seen, in broad daylight, the exercise of that power and the bullying tactics used. For that to be said out loud, in that circumstance, we know: conversations are being had in private. What are they? What intimidation has been happening throughout Victorian businesses in the construction sector? We ask ourselves why in the last financial year Victoria was the only state that saw an aggregate decline in small businesses. There were about 7,000 fewer when you aggregate those that opened and those that closed. There's always a churn, but there had never been that decline in numbers. Compare that to Queensland, where there was an aggregate increase of 11,000. A key part of that was movement south to north. But we can't rely on businesses just surviving or transferring to Queensland and hoping it's better when it's the construction sector, because, for Melbourne to be a liveable city that can accommodate that many people by 2050, we require an efficient, fair construction sector.

Let's go to the interview that prompted this discrete amendment. Stephen McBurney is the head of officiating for the AFL. He's umpired over 400 AFL games and four grand finals. So what is Mr Setka's issue with Mr McBurney? It's simple: it's a line on his CV that he objected to and he sought to wield bullying control over. Mr McBurney in a previous life was head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. What happened there? That was a commission that brought forward evidence of the CFMEU's bullying, thuggery and intimidation, and that wasn't just Mr McBurney coming to that view; he presented that evidence to the courts, and the courts found as much. They were found to have breached the Fair Work Act in 91 per cent of cases and they were fined millions of dollars for this.

What did Mr Setka say in response? I know we're not allowed to swear in this place, so I'm going use the euphemism of a 'fire truck'. I think we know what that means. He said: 'We have an obligation to pursue anti-union, antiworker fire truckers like him, and we will until the end of the earth. This is going to cost the AFL a lot of fire trucking money. I hope it's worth it. Projects without our full cooperation are going to be a fire trucking misery for them. They will regret the day they ever employed him.'

Think about that. Who speaks like that? Who speaks like that in public? You have to ask yourself: if that's what they say in public, if that's the language they use in 2024, what do they say in private when no-one is looking? What do they say when it's not the AFL? The AFL is no shrinking violet; it is a large institution with lots of money and supporters throughout this country, and he still chose to do that in that form. So what does he say to the small business or to the medium business? What happens behind closed doors? We know the answer to that. It's borne out in the flight of businesses out of Victoria, in the premium of costs to build large construction projects. The SRL on a 30-year timeline will cost $216 billion. That's the cost now. The North East Link, originally a $10 billion project, is now $26 billion.

What did the Prime Minister say when he was presented with this evidence? He said, 'Don't question me on it, because it will encourage him.' Can you imagine what the Prime Minister would do if a leader of any other institution had threatened another in that way? That is weak. It is impotent. Again, we have to ask why. We quite rightly hear a lot of talk about how there needs to be an increase in character and integrity in this place. That can take its form in institutions, but it's also in how we conduct ourselves, how we speak and the decisions that we make. There is no more important test of integrity than when your personal interests clash with what it is doing right. You had two doors and you choose which one you walk through. It is only when self-interest clashes with what it is doing right that you see the true measure of character. So the Prime Minister would have noted that in one of those doors was the risk of offending a person in a union that has donated $4.3 million dollars to his political party. In the other door was doing what was right.

It's not just standing up for the AFL; it is standing up for the mum-and-dad businesses and for the Victorians who want better-quality infrastructure delivered more quickly and cheaply. They're not getting that, and we certainly won't be the liveable city we're proud of—certainly not by 2050, when Melbourne's population will be the size of London's. The Prime Minister had a choice. He had a choice to choose principle over power, and he chose power. That's why we're left with this piecemeal amendment, which seeks to fix up a discrete problem.

That's not how we should do legislation in this place. It shouldn't be driven by the power, circumstances or particular factions that might have numbers that'll influence something. You should take a principled position. That demerger right should be there across the board. The Prime Minister had a choice between power and principle, and he chose power. We condemn him for it.

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