Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Withdrawal from Amalgamation) Bill 2024, because with this bill we are cleaning up the mess that the Labor Party has created. Labor had perfectly good laws in place left to them by the coalition, which allowed for unions to demerge when honest unions didn't want to be associated with the criminal gangs and thugs of aspects of the CFMEU. At the behest of their union paymasters, the CFMEU, which gave them $4.3 million—that's a figure you'll hear me say many times in this speech—impressed upon Labor the need to remove the demerger provisions.

Now Labor have done a massive backflip, seen the error of their ways and understood that honest workers and honest union officials shouldn't have to hang out with people who have a rap sheet longer than my arm and people who treat orders of court with contempt—CFMEU officials famously wallpaper their toilets with contempt of court notices—but that's what they have been forced to do until we restore these demerger provisions that allow unions to make a choice about which unions they want to be part of.

I think the conduct of aspects of the CFMEU in relation to unions dominated by women has been a disgrace. I particularly think that, in the context of the textiles division of the CFMEU—a part of the economy that is dominated by female workers—the threats and intimidation that have been placed upon union officials in the textiles division, particularly women, is a disgrace. We should not accept in any form harassment of women in the workplace, yet that has been allowed to go unchecked and those officials will have to remain part of the CFMEU until these laws restore the coalition's perspective, the coalition's position, which allows honest unions to demerge from unions which are crooked.

In the textiles division of the CFMEU, one of the union secretaries told The Age newspaper about her first meeting with the CFMEU. She says:

It was a male-dominated space. He just went on this big rant and there was fear if anyone tried to say anything it would have just got a lot worse.

One of the union reps stated with regard to the workplace culture of the CFMEU offices:

Within the building there were jokes about domestic violence. It was very uncomfortable to the point where our division had to leave the building.

That's the culture of the CFMEU—a culture that people should not put up with for one day in any workplace, yet the organisation in our community that is actually supposed to stand up for workers was creating a workplace that was littered with harassment. That's why it's really important that, if the textiles division wants to demerge from the CFMEU, they are able to do so. We provided for that avenue in 2020 when we made amendments to the legislation to allow for union demergers. But Labor, because they are in thrall to the union movement, decided to reverse that. This bill is about restoring the position put in place by the coalition.

At the dark heart of the CFMEU, an organisation which founded and funds the Labor Party, is John Setka—one of the most violent and contemptuous union officials this country has ever known. In late August 2019, Setka's estranged wife provided a sworn statement to police detailing a serious incident where Mr Setka had physically assaulted her. She said:

John was out of control. He hit my head against the table about five times. It was very painful. John is a lot bigger and stronger than me and he can totally physically control me. When he loses his temper, there isn't anything I can do but submit to him.

When are the CFMEU going to clean up their act and get rid of this man? He shouldn't be representing any worker. The standard you walk by is the standard you accept, and for the CFMEU to have a man like this engaged in leading their union is a terrible thing. For the Australian Labor Party to accept $4.3 million dollars in donations from an organisation led by this man is an extraordinary thing in the context of our country. That somebody has engaged in these terrible threats, not just to women in his workplace but to his own estranged wife, is something that we in this country shouldn't put up with.

Mr Setka and the CFMEU have it in for umpires. They don't like umpires of any sort. They didn't like the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was the umpire in their industry. They particularly did not like Mr McBurney, who was the head official at the AFL. That's why this has come to a head. It's not come to a head because of Mr Setka's conduct and the conduct of CFMEU officials in their own building, creating a threatening workplace for women in the textiles division of the CFMEU. It's come to a head because of the threats that Mr Setka has made in relation to the AFL. The head of officiating—the head umpire, effectively—is someone who once worked, effectively, as the umpire in the building industry. And because Mr Setka never likes to be held to account, because the CFMEU don't like the idea that they will be held to account by someone, they engage in threatening and intimidatory conduct. That's why the government's hand has been forced here.

I think it's worthwhile listening to some of Mr Setka's own words in relation to Stephen McBurney—a man who has discharged his duties as an umpire and official in the AFL in an exemplary fashion for hundreds and hundreds of games, just as he discharged his duties as an official of the ABCC in an exemplary manner too. And yet, Mr Setka has complete contempt for a fine Australian in Stephen McBurney. Mr Setka is fond of using the Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon is a word that is probably unparliamentary, so I'm going to take a page out of the book of my friend, the Manager of the Opposition Business, and, where Mr Setka would use the Anglo-Saxon, I'm going to use the words 'flip' and 'flipping'. He said: 'I think it'll have implications for the AFL right across Australia. We have an obligation to pursue anti-union, anti-worker flippers like him and we will until the end of the earth. This is going to cost the AFL a lot of flipping money. I hope it's worth it. Projects without our full cooperation are going to be a flipping misery for them.' These are the threatening words of John Setka, because the AFL has, as their head of the officiating, someone who once tried to hold him to account, and successfully held him and his union to account, on building sites.

Mr Setka says of the AFL: 'They will regret the day they ever employed him … We will use every resource we have to pursue him … They don't just walk away from a role like that, cost the union millions of dollars and just think they can walk into the flipping sunset. It doesn't work that way … This is the real world. We go after our enemies, and he was our number one enemy, and we will pursue him until the ends of the earth.' Mr Setka doesn't sound like a person who's there to argue for the rights of workers; he sounds like a terrorist. This is an extraordinary mindset for somebody leading a union that controls the preselection of Labor Party members and donates $4.3 million to the Labor Party. This is just extraordinary.

Mr Setka goes on to say of Mr McBurney and his role in the AFL, and of what will happen if the AFL keeps Mr Burney:

If it's work to rule, and we just work our basic hours, things are going to drag out forever—

and projects will mostly run over budget—

We are not going to stop a whole stadium, but for projects of this nature to get delivered, they have to have the full cooperation on site, and that means a lot of flexibility, a lot of give and take.

We get our blokes to work RDOs, sometimes on long weekends. We have a meeting and say, "Look, the job's behind, they need to deliver this on time."

And, 'Let me tell you, god help them if their schedule is ever out of flipping whack, because we will not be bending over backwards to do a flipping thing to help them. It's going to be a hard slog for them.' Mr Setka has said that the union has an obligation to pursue former ABCC officers and wreck their careers, wherever they are. It's just extraordinary that a person who's supposed to be there to create safe working environments is actually pursuing other workers in a way that makes their own work environment unsafe.

It seems unprecedented, except that it's not. We know that this conduct has been going on for generations in the CFMEU. And it's not just Mr Setka; I don't want you to think that he's an isolated example in the CFMEU context. There are other CFMEU officials who have also held Mr McBurney in contempt because Mr McBurney was trying to do his job. He did his job lawfully at the ABCC, and now he's trying to do his job lawfully as the head of officiating at the AFL. Take Mr Zachary Smith, the CFMEU's national secretary. He said of Mr McBurney:

… as the head of the disgraced ABCC, Stephen McBurney brought untold misery to the lives of workers he unfairly demonised and the branch is very rightly expressing the genuine anger of its members.

The national union is yet to discuss potential action against the AFL, but there's zero doubt the pain the ABCC caused under McBurney is still being deeply felt by construction workers across Australia.

There was no pain for construction workers. There was only pain for union officials and only pain for union officials who were engaged in standover tactics and who were creating intimidatory workplaces in the construction sector. That's why the CFMEU hates them. That's why CFMEU has pursued a vendetta against people who once worked for the ABCC. That's why the CFMEU is engaged in the work of trying to discredit Mr McBurney—a very distinguished umpire, a very distinguished public servant—and make his life, and the life of the AFL, who have employed him, hell.

But this goes further than the CFMEU. Let me also quote from the Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, Luke Hilakari. He said that 'people's reputations follow them' and went on to say:

AFL is a working-class sport and his—

Mr McBurney's—

track record of blowing the whistle on the unions puts him at odds with many fans.

I think Mr McBurney's record as an umpire—fair decisions in the workplace; fair decisions on the playing field—puts him on side with many fans. That's what we need more of in this country—people who will stand against lawlessness—because we are seeing lawlessness in too many parts of our country.

I think the role that the CFMEU plays in the Labor Party, founding the Labor Party and funding the Labor Party, helps explain why we are seeing lawlessness across our country and the Labor Party refusing to take action on so many fronts. Fundamentally, those in the CFMEU conduct themselves in a lawless manner, and they want to get away with it, and they have a political party in this place that bends over backwards to change laws to make it easier for the CFMEU to engage in lawlessness. When we ask ourselves the questions: 'Why are we seeing a growth in lawlessness across the entire Australian community at the moment? And why is this federal government, under Anthony Albanese, failing to take action?' it is because the very way the Labor Party is set up, the very purpose of the Labor Party, is to help people engage in lawless activities like that activity engaged in by the CFMEU.

When we look at Australia today, we are seeing lawlessness in every level, whether it's the return of the unions flexing their muscle on buildings sites because of the abolition of the ABCC; whether it is people smugglers thumbing their noses at our border protection policies and this Labor government allowing hardened criminals, rapists and murderers, to run around the country unsupervised and continue to commit crimes; whether it is the growth of knife crimes in my city, knife crimes in Western Sydney and knife crimes in Bondi; whether it is the growth in graffiti; whether it is the terrible inaction of this government to stop antisemitism on campus; or whether it is the unabated growth in domestic violence that we have seen, this temperature of and growth in lawlessness are created by a government that refuses to stand for law-abiding citizens. That's why it is so important that we, on this side of the House, hold the government to account, because, if the government had its way, it would continue to promote lawlessness.

It's the reason we are here today. The government wanted to have a situation where the poor workers in the textiles division of the CFMEU—women who were going about their job of representing other women at the workplace, and were doing so in an honest fashion—were not able to leave the CFMEU. The CFMEU is an organisation packed with people like Mr Setka—a man fond of using the Anglo-Saxon; a man who has a rap sheet longer than my arm; a man who treats Federal Court orders with contempt. They wanted to force the poor officials and workers at the textiles division to stay with these people.

When a marriage is not working, we say: people should have the right to bust up; people should have the right to go their separate ways. That's why, in 2020, it was a coalition government that enacted laws to allow demergers to happen in the union movement. That's why, in 2020, in the face of union opposition, we demonstrated leadership. We demonstrated that we wanted to stand with the law-abiding instead of standing with corrupt union officials.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:29 to 11:48

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