Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There aren't a whole lot of bills that I relish coming in and speaking about in this place, but this is one of them. I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Withdrawal from Amalgamation) Bill 2024.

I want you to imagine this scenario: a 19-year-old lad working on a commercial building site in Melbourne in around 1986 or 1987. That young lad was about 70 kilos dripping wet. It was the first day of his apprenticeship. Most people who've worked on building sites would know that the productivity of apprentices in their first year may not be so great, but this was day 1. I was that apprentice. It was my first day on the job of my partnership. I was working on a high-rise construction site in Melbourne. I was sweeping the floor, as any good first-year apprentice would do, and I had two big gorillas come up to me. One of them drove his finger into my chest and said: 'Slow down, Son. Slow down.' I was 19. As I said, I would have been 70 kilos dripping wet, and I was scared out of my wits. Some 35-odd years later I'm really proud to say that I'm glad those two gorillas did what they did, because I probably wouldn't be standing here but for that workplace of intimidation.

Of course, that wasn't executed by members of the CFMEU, because the CFMEU didn't exist back then. That was back in the days of Norm Gallagher's Builders Labourers Federation, back in the bad old days in the 1980s, when people's legs and arms were literally broken. I was absolutely scared out of my mind by these two guys. The fact that these two gentlemen—and I use that term extremely loosely—could (a) assault me as a kid and (b) tell me to slow down because I was sweeping the floor too quickly—give me a break! But that really kicked off my immense dislike for construction unions.

I am not anti-union. I think that the unions have done a lot of good in industrial workplaces in this country and throughout the world. What I am against is union thuggery and union bullying. It really upsets me when I hear members opposite talking about the importance of safe workplaces and not having an environment where people feel like they are threatened at work, yet the Labor Party continue to take $4½ million a year from the CFMEU for their election campaigns. That's what really upsets me.

I'm not anti-union. I'm absolutely not anti-union. In fact, believe it or not, I actually used to be a member of a union. I couldn't get my carpentry apprenticeship unless I joined the Builders Labourers Federation. Can you believe that? I couldn't get my apprenticeship. Back in the eighties there were signs up on every building site in cities across the country, and do you know what they said? They said 'no ticket, no start', which meant, if you weren't a card-carrying member of the BLF, you couldn't work on that site. And John Howard, to his credit, brought in rules of freedom of association. That event, back when I was a kid, irrevocably shaped who I am today. It angered me so much that I wanted to—people say, 'How did you start off in public life?' or, 'What made you go into politics?' There were lots of things, but that was one of them. I don't want to live in a country where gorillas, goons, can drive their fingers into people's chests, kids' chests, and threaten them because they're working too hard, they're pushing a broom too fast.

I'm really glad the member for Kennedy is in here, and it's a shame he wasn't in here earlier; he could have heard my earlier remarks about the CFMEU. But the Labor Party had an opportunity to accept a bill that we put in place back in 2020 to give certain unions the ability to demerge from other unions if they felt that they no longer shared the ethos of the unions that they were involved with. That bill was passed in 2020, when we were in government, and Labor reversed those laws in February of this year. Why? Because John Setka didn't like it. There was no other reason. It was that John Setka didn't like it.

The textile clothing and footwear sector, which has the greatest number of women members, faces significant issues within the CFMEU. With the toxic, male dominated culture that I've seen on building sites my entire life, it should not come as any great surprise that a union whose membership is heavily dominated by women wouldn't support the sort of rubbish that we have seen be perpetrated by the CFMEU. So they wanted to demerge and get out of the CFMEU. Everybody, it seems, wants to leave the CFMEU. Back in 2020—

That's because they look after you, Bob. Back in 2020 it was the maritime workers who wanted to demerge from the CFMEU. The way the CFMEU are going, they're going to have to change their name to the 'C' because no-one wants to be a part of them! No other industry, no other union, wants to be a part of the CFMEU, because of the appalling conduct. Here's another miner—

Here's one of them who don't want to be a part of the CFMEU, because of the appalling conduct of people like John Setka. But the Labor Party have now had an epiphany, just in the last couple of weeks. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, you might be thinking, 'What is this epiphany?' The epiphany is that the member for Watson has finally come to his senses and realised that the coalition actually had it right back in 2020. Unions should have the ability to demerge from other unions if they feel it's in their best interests. But this come-to-Jesus moment, this road to Damascus, only happened after John Setka effectively tried to hold the country to ransom when he took on the AFL. The AFL seems to have more power and more sway than just about any other organisation in this country.

I want to declare a conflict of interest at this point. The member for Watson had this road-to-Damascus moment because John Setka came out and said publicly that he wanted to take on Stephen McBurney. He said things like: 'I think it will have implications for the AFL right across Australia. We have an obligation to pursue antiunion, antiworker expletives like him, and we will until the end of the earth.' And there are a whole range of things. He threatened the Australian government and the Australian taxpayers with, effectively, economic coercion and with stopping jobs, or certainly slowing them down, if the AFL didn't sack Stephen McBurney.

Where's my conflict of interest? I went to school with Stephen McBurney at St Bede's College in Mentone. We were in the same year. He's not a mate of mine. I don't dislike him, but he wasn't a friend of mine. But I went to school with him, and he has been a really faithful servant of the AFL. He acted as the AFL chief umpire, and now, after his term as the Australian Building and Construction Commission head, he's got his job back. Why has he got his job back? Because the Labor Party abolished the ABCC.

What we're seeing here today is the reason why we needed the ABCC in the first place: for people like John Setka and the thugs. Not everybody in the CFMEU are thugs, certainly, but the leadership of the CFMEU have proven time and time again to be. The Federal Court, time and time again, have said that this CFMEU is the most recidivist union organisation in Australia. It continues to cop fines imposed by the Federal Court, and the CFMEU treats those fines as the cost of doing business. It's just the cost of doing business. It wasn't until laws were passed that enabled the Federal Court to impose fines personally upon officials of the CFMEU that they actually started to sit up and take a little bit of notice.

Stephen McBurney, who is otherwise a good man, was doing his job as a public servant and running the Australian Building and Construction Commission, but, in doing so, he was effectively the policeman, effectively the police commissioner, and he brought prosecutions against the CFMEU. John Setka went after him and forbade the AFL from employing him. If the AFL didn't take the warning from the CFMEU, then all AFL job sites would just grind to a halt because this is what the CFMEU do. This is their modus operandi. 'If you don't join the union'—I know from my personal history—'we're going to black ban you. We're going to black ban you not just on this site but on every other site in this country until we bring you to your knees!' That is the way the CFMEU operate. And they try to use the same intimidation tactics they use on every single other building site in this country every day of this calendar year and in years past. That's what they tried to do with the AFL. And now the member for Watson has this epiphany. 'Oh, this is terrible. We should allow those smaller unions to de-merge.'

Shame on the member for Watson. Shame on every single member in this House who receives a benefit from the CFMEU in financial means to their campaigns or to the head campaign. Shame on them for taking that blood money, because blood money is exactly what it is. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. (Time expired)

See this speech in context