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

I second the motion. The Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024 is a no-brainer. For the Queenslanders in the House right now: do you remember that Suncorp ad where the wife is wandering around the backyard with a tea towel over her head and she says: 'Charter boat? What charter boat?'? For years the now Leader of the Opposition and I, and many other members on this side of the House, have been talking about the criminality in the building industry by the CFMEU. And the Prime Minister and the member for Watson had the audacity to say recently, 'We had no idea it was this bad.' For years, those members who have been around for a while would have heard the Leader of the Opposition talking about the CFMEU breaking arms, threatening people who were working on building sites. Well, I was one of those people who were threatened on a building site in Melbourne in the bad old days of the BF. That's why I am so exercised by this issue.

So, for those members opposite to come in here and say, 'Oh, there's nothing to see here'—as they did for so many years, and now they've had this epiphany because of some recent media that was done—is beyond galling. It is misleading, because this discussion has been had for so long and it has been brought to the attention of those opposite. Yet, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, they've taken $100 million since 2007 in political donations.

Those members opposite talk about how you have to operate in safe workplaces, but somehow that doesn't apply to building sites across this country. Men and women across this country—good, hardworking small-business people—go to building sites every day to put food on the table for their kids, yet they are subject to the thuggery that is going on every day in this building industry: 'If you don't pay the piper, you don't get to work here'. It's moved beyond 'no ticket, no start'. It's moved beyond 'If you don't sign up to the CFMEU, if you don't pay the piper, then you can't get a start.' It's not only that but: 'Not only will you not get a start on this job; you won't get a start on any job, on any building site in this country.'

The ABCC will bring back a restoration of integrity to this industry, which has been so lawless for such a long time. Stephen McBurney, who used to be the commissioner—and who, full disclosure, I went to school with—is a good guy. He stood up and stood up for people in the building industry. And what has the CFMEU done? They tried to get him banned from going back to working for the AFL. That's what started all of this—the CFMEU had the audacity to pick a fight with the AFL. God knows!

The Leader of the Opposition touched on the costs of construction. If I were still a chippy, and I was sitting down in the pub having a drink my mates on a Friday night, and the bloke sitting next to me tells me he's earning $200,000 on a building site, and I'm earning 40 or 50 bucks an hour on a building site, where do you reckon I'm going to go? I'm going to go to my boss and say: 'Boss, guess what I heard on Friday. You either need to start paying me more money or I am out of here. That's why we've got a construction skills shortage in this country. That's why people can't get their houses built. That's why the price of construction and housing has skyrocketed. (Time expired)

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