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

I don't drink, but if I did drink I reckon I wouldn't mind having a beer with the member for Hunter. But let's just shoot the breeze here a little bit. I've been a carpenter. I finished my apprenticeship in 1990, I think it was. Let's just say I worked on a residential building site, and let's just say the member for Hunter was a carpenter on a CFMEU building site, and let's just say we were having a drink on a Friday afternoon and I asked, 'Old mate, what do you earn?' He says: 'Well, I earn over 200,000 bucks a year. In fact, even the lollypop lady out the front'—or the lollypop bloke—'is on 200,000 bucks a year.' Now, as a carpenter and joiner working on a residential building site, if I was getting paid by the hour, I might be earning 40 or 50 bucks an hour. I'm going to be thinking, Hang on a minute: that's not very fair; I'm going to go and see my boss on Monday morning and say, 'Listen old mate, old boss: I want some more money, because I know the member for Hunter, who's on a sideline, working on a CFMEU building site'—hypothetically; we're still in that pub environment—'is earning 200,000 bucks a year, and I want some of that action!'

The member for Parramatta just said residential builders are earning a 10 to 20 per cent profit margin, which goes to show how absolutely little members opposite know about economics, particularly in relation to the building industry. Do you want to know what builders get as a profit margin? The member for Parramatta is about to get a whole lot of emails from all the builders in his electorate, because I can guarantee that there wouldn't be one builder in this country who is on a 10 to 20 per cent profit margin. Most builders are going backwards at a great rate of knots because they can't make any money in building. Why? Because, going back to my analogy, they are having to meet and pay wages to try and keep up with building sites. This is one of the things which are driving the costs of construction in this country.

We all know—and it really concerns me—that all of those members opposite, in the government, have come in here and tried to defend the CFMEU in this MPI, as though the bill that we're about to go back and debate shortly weren't even being introduced. It's a bill that the government has introduced which is going to put the CFMEU into administration, yet those members opposite have been playing a protection racket for the CFMEU for decades.

This is now the 66th time I have spoken about criminal activity in the building industry in eight years, and I can see those people opposite who have constantly shaken their heads and said, 'No, that doesn't happen.' Well, we now know what the actions of the CFMEU have been, and the member for Watson has had this 'come to Jesus' moment. He has seen the light, looked up and said: 'Look, I'm surprised. I didn't know it was this bad.' The Prime Minister has said the same thing.

I would have thought that the member for Watson in his previous roles, when he was the shadow minister for industrial relations and when he was the minister for industrial relations, would have kept an eye on court judgements—the same sorts of court judgements that have repeatedly, time and time and time again, handed down some $20 million in fines over the last two decades.

Those members opposite say, 'We had no idea.' If you're not involved in a particular portfolio, fair enough. But, for the member for Watson, who has been the minister for industrial relations or in that shadow for several years, not to have been aware of these Federal Court judgements, where judge after judge has said that this behaviour is intolerable and that the CFMEU are treating fines as the cost of doing business and just think that they are above the law—well, those members opposite have finally woken up. Finally we're starting to see some justice.

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