Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister confirm the importance of regular holidays for the health of ordinary Australian workers, particularly those in my electorate? Can the minister provide details of how the health of workers, and money which could be spent on courses to improve their health, has been jeopardised? Can he describe how this has happened and any justification that has been given? What is the government’s response?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mackellar for her question. I certainly accept that regular rest and recreation is very important for health, particularly for the health of workers. For more than 50 years, thousands of workers had healthy holidays at Unions NSW’s holiday retreat of Currawong in Pittwater, in the electorate of Mackellar. Not any more. Unions NSW have just sold Currawong—to a developer, no less. But they did not sell it for $30 million as one bidder offered. They did not sell it for $25 million as the Macquarie Bank offered. They ended up selling it for $15 million in one of the most mysterious deals of recent times.

This is certainly going to damage the health of workers because the courses on occupational health and safety previously run at Currawong cannot continue. I looked at the ACTU website today and it says the sale of Currawong means that they are ‘therefore unable to guarantee at this stage that residential courses will go ahead’. I discovered from Piers Akerman’s article in the Daily Telegraph today that the entity advising Unions NSW, through a complicated corporate structure, was also the entity that was purchasing the site. There is a clear conflict of interest in this sale that is going to damage the health of workers in New South Wales.

The same person who co-controls the entity advising Unions NSW also co-owns the purchaser of the site. This gentleman, Mr Alan Linz, had been a fellow director of Unions NSW boss John Robertson of a company called Getonboard, whose directors also included New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa and New South Wales Labor secretary Mark Arbib. There is a clear case of insider dealing here.

I ask this House, I ask the people of New South Wales and I ask the honest unionists of New South Wales: where are the missing millions? Why did Unions NSW sell this property for $15 million less than they could have had? This deal has ‘scam’ written all over it. I call on the New South Wales Police Fraud Squad to investigate the links between Mr Linz and senior Unions NSW figures and I particularly call on the New South Wales Fraud Squad to investigate why one of the companies controlling the advising company was registered in the British Virgin Islands—

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order, if the minister truly thinks that some criminal activity has been undertaken, he should be reporting it to the police, not to the parliament.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am listening carefully to the minister. He was asked a question about the health of workers and I believe he is certainly in order. I also point out that the minister may wish to do what the member for Gellibrand requested.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can be quite confident that I will be doing just that, Mr Speaker, because I am concerned about scams which damage the health of the workers of New South Wales, and the Leader of the Opposition, who likes to give unctuous lectures to people about standards, needs to explain why Unions NSW entered into an arrangement that involves a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, no less—one of the world’s most notorious tax havens—involving people whose ownership of it is a deep, dark secret because of that registration. Who are the shareholders here? Who are the beneficiaries here? What is the relationship between senior Labor Party officials in New South Wales in this deal? And where did that $15 million go? We deserve some answers.