Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The fact that Liberal member after Liberal member is coming in here on an industrial relations matter and saying what a great bill this is and why they're going to support it, ought to give the government pause for thought about what it's doing.

When they were in power the Liberals were ferociously anti-union. They established and maintained the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was effectively an industrial police force for one industry only, which meant that if you happened to work in the construction industry you had fewer rights than workers in other industries. You lost your right to silence, you could be hauled into secret interviews and forced to name names and answer questions. There were massive penalties imposed on people, simply because of the industry that they worked in. And it was clearly designed to do the bidding of the Liberals and the bidding of the big corporations to attack workers' rights. It also undermined the rule of law. There should be a general principle in this country that says that the law applies across the board equally, everyone's entitled to the same protections and, if you break the law, then there's a system for dealing with it, which is that you get a presumption of innocence, you get taken into the courts and the judge decides whether or not you've broken the law. This idea to start having really draconian provisions, where you take away people's basic rights just because of the industry that they work in, is incredibly destructive—not just for the rights of the people who work in the construction industry but for the rule of law in general.

The Liberals also had a huge range of legislation. One of the biggest pieces of legislation ever written, from a party that supposedly believed in deregulation, was the Work Choices legislation, where they were quite happy to sit down at the table and tie the hands of workers as they tried to negotiate. This party of so-called non-market interferers was very happy to say: 'You can't have these provisions in your agreement, even if you can negotiate them. You can't have provisions that protect apprentices. You can't have provisions that are designed to give workers a seat at the table and the ability to have a say in decisions that the company is making that affect them.'

The Liberals were very happy to get in and regulate down to the most micro aspect about what happened in particular workplaces and to take away the rights of workers across the board, including construction workers. They also had provisions in their laws that were aimed at weakening unions. We've seen huge numbers of those laws that were around weakening unions' rights regarding right of entry and right to strike. But they also had provisions in there that were clearly coming from a Liberal government that said: 'We don't like strong unions, so we're going to have provisions in the laws that are designed to say that we want to encourage the weakening of unions and the breaking apart of strong unions.' That was the Liberal way.

We now have a bill that seeks to reinstate some of those provisions, and it's why Liberal member after Liberal member is lining up to say, 'What a great idea.' I want the government to seriously think about this and the path that they're embarking on. Once you do this for one union, people are going to say: 'Well, what about me? Shouldn't this apply across the board?' It becomes increasingly difficult to justify the laws that you've got in place when you start saying you're going to make exceptions for one, and then you somehow expect that, when the Liberals line up and say, 'Great; you're reintroducing part of our laws for this,' they're not going to keep coming back and asking for more and more. You've just given them a justification for it. You've just said, 'We want to turn the clock back and have Liberal-era laws in place, and we're going to target one particular union.' But, as the national secretary of the CFMEU, Zach Smith, pointed out: 'This bill risks setting a dangerous precedent for anti-worker ideologues in future coalition governments to break up unions.'

So I really want the government to think seriously about what it is they're doing here. I know a lot has been said during the course of debate about the actions of particular individuals. Again, I come back to the point—and maybe this is an old-fashioned view—that the rule of law applies because there's a law that applies and, if you break the law, there's a process for dealing with it. But, if what you're going to do is actually come in here and legislate specifically for one union, I say to Labor again: you have just opened the door. Again, ask yourself: why is it that Liberal speaker after Liberal speaker is coming in here and saying what a terrific idea this is?

The Greens have a straightforward principle position, which is why we opposed the ABCC—and we're very pleased that the government delivered on a commitment to abolish the ABCC. That was a really good move from Labor because, as I said before, that was effectively a secret industrial police force for one area only. It meant that, if you happened to work in that area, you had fewer rights than your colleagues, including things like the right to silence. That was a good move.

It is a bit shocking to see them now saying, 'Actually, we want to reinstate some of it,' because generally, as I said, what we should have is a system of laws that applies across the board. If you break those laws, the system should be holding you to account. Also, when it comes to unions and their fate, they should comply with the laws that exist and are in place at the time. If there is a case to make for changing those laws generally, then come in and make it, but it is a really worrying precedent in terms of what this government is doing. I urge the government to rethink this question and ask themselves why it is you don't see Labor members standing up here and speaking on this. You only see coalition members. If you're bringing in legislation that the coalition thinks is a terrific idea, are you doing the right thing?

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