Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 16 October the member for Leichhardt made a speech in which he attempted to justify his unwillingness to explain to his electorate why he supports the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations laws. This matter has been brought to my attention by some concerned friends and citizens of North Queensland. We know the real reason why he, like so many other Liberal and National Party friends, colleagues and members of this chamber, is happy to do the bidding of the Prime Minister in Canberra and hide from the consequences in their own electorate. Nothing typifies this behaviour more than the industrial relations laws. Despite the parliamentary bluff and bluster, the reality is that the Liberal and National parties know that the industrial relations laws are a disaster for them. The independent e-commentary website Currumbin2Cook reported during the Queensland election campaign, after its first focus group meeting in which voters were asked their views on various issues:

Some things stand out. There are two gorillas in the room that no-one is talking about. One is the federal IR laws...

This was posted by Graham Young, a former vice-president and campaign chairman of the Queensland Liberal Party. Another post said:

Right from the start it was clear that it was a vote-changer. Opposition to Work Choices was shifting votes to Labor and holding votes that Labor would otherwise have lost on state issues.

This is why the member for Leichhardt is hiding from the voters of his electorate—or maybe he is just too busy. I note that in September he accepted an appointment to the board of the listed Cairns based property group CEC. In the speech I referred to, the member for Leichhardt made a number of claims about the Leichhardt union campaign to debate the laws. He said:

I have been challenged to debate the new IR laws at times when it was known that I would not be in town.

In November 2005 he was asked to speak at a National Day of Action rally at his office in Cairns. His staff told organisers, and he himself has stated publicly, that he was not in. We know that he was in his office in a meeting with the member for Dawson. The member for Leichhardt’s staff also denied that he was in town during a rally in August of this year. He was up the road having lunch at Raintrees Tavern. He also said:

More recently, a so-called invitation demanding that I attend at a certain time and place turned up at my office without so much as a return contact number for RSVP purposes.

The fact is that the invitation was sent to the member for Leichhardt by email with the name and details of the sender. It was faxed and it was sent by registered post. He also says he asked Ergon Energy to investigate a number of complaints against the participation of Ergon workers in the Cairns Your Rights at Work campaign. The member for Leichhardt stated that Ergon could find no evidence to support his:

... claims of inappropriate use of Ergon assets for union activity despite being forwarded a resolution from an ETU meeting that was sent to me by union steward Stewart Trail during work hours from his Ergon email account.

The Ergon certified agreement contains a provision for the union delegate to allow him access to work on computers and email for union business. Has Work Choices got to the stage where an employee cannot use an employer’s computer even when it is part of an agreed certified agreement? The member for Leichhardt also stated:

My office also has provided ... photographic evidence of the activity of their employees which included the photograph of 42 Ergon Energy vehicles ... during an ETU protest rally outside my electorate office in August.

I am told that the entire Ergon fleet in McLeod Street, Cairns, is 42. On the day of the rally there were some Ergon vehicles in the member for Leichhardt’s street but nowhere near the 42, and they were parked away from the member for Leichhardt’s office. These are workers who start and finish on site and as a consequence were having their lunch and parked their vehicles to attend the rally. This again is permissible under the Ergon EBA.

The distortions, deceptions, half-truths and unsubstantiated allegations contained in the speech by the member for Leichhardt are typical of the approach of the Howard government to industrial relations. The fact is that the Howard government’s industrial relations laws are indefensible and that is why the member for Leichhardt remains in hiding from those who elected him. I say to the member for Leichhardt: the people who have contacted me about this are very concerned citizens. They are concerned about him. They are concerned about his need to make sure he communicates with them and stands up for his government’s industrial relations laws. He has failed to do so and yet he has come into this chamber and made excuses as to why he has not. They appear to be, on the surface at least, excuses which when put to the test do not stand up. There are two sides to the story and I am giving the alternate side—the one the member failed to give when he addressed this parliament.