Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister advise the House of action being taken by the government to make union officials more accountable to their rank and file members and to clean up Australia's building and construction industry? How will this improve the productivity of worksites across Australia?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for this very important question. This parliament will soon be asked to pass once again legislation to improve the accountability and transparency of unions and employer organisations and to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. These are vital economic reforms. They are an important, critical part of our economic plan. They will improve transparency and boost the productivity of construction sites across Australia. They will improve the availability of affordable housing. They will ensure that the roads and the hospitals and the bridges we build are built at less cost to the taxpayer, rather than having the cost inflated by 30 per cent or more because of the outrageous and unlawful industrial malpractices of the CFMEU.

We have seen example after example of the bullying and standover tactics, of the thuggery and lawlessness, of militant unions. Their contempt for the law, their lack of concern for the workers they claim to represent, has impacted thousands of construction workers right across the country. Right now there are 113 officials—113—from one union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, before the courts for more than 1,100 suspected, alleged, contraventions of law. As numerous judges have observed, the CFMEU and its fellow militant unions treat these penalties like parking tickets. They treat them as a cost of doing business. It is a cost of their breaking the law; it is a cost they ignore because their level of intimidation over the construction sector is imposing a lawless tax on every Australian.

One million Australians, 300,000 small businesses, work in our building and construction sector. They deserve to work in a sector governed by the rule of law. Right now they do not. Master Builders Australia have estimated, as you know, Mr Speaker, that costs are 30 per cent higher due to the working days lost in industrial action. This is a mess the Leader of the Opposition himself created in 2012 when he abolished the ABCC, and he did so because he had to do the CFMEU's bidding. He is as controlled by the CFMEU as the Victorian Premier is controlled by the firefighters union. (Time expired)