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

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister outline to the House the government's commitment to ensure that employer and employee organisations always act in the best interests of their members and that the rule of law is the norm of building sites across Australia and not the exception?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. The last time the Australian Building and Construction Commission existed in Australia it improved productivity in the building and construction industry by 16.8 per cent. It saved consumers $7½ billion. Yet the Leader of the Opposition when he was the minister in the Gillard government abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Given its obvious importance to the economy and to 1.1 million Australians employed in the building and construction industry, one wonders why the Leader of the Opposition abolished it. I may have found a clue buried in the volumes of the evidence provided to the Heydon royal commission, and that was an email sent by Dean Mighell, who will be very familiar to many people in the House for a number of reasons. Dean Mighell, the former long-term secretary of the ETU, the Electoral Trades Union, provided an email to the royal commission that he had sent to other state secretaries in Victoria in mid- to late-2010. In it he writes:

Given that the Federal ALP is desperate for funds, surely we can say that we will help them if and only if, they abolish the ABCC. I can tell you for a fact that unions are donating to Federal labor for outcomes not promises …

When he was asked by the royal commissioner what unions were engaging in this process of donating to the ALP for 'outcomes not promises', he said, 'I believe that the CFMEU were again seeking the abolition of the ABCC as a policy outcome.' So there we are, Mr Speaker. And surprise, surprise, it was done by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the minister responsible. The unions gave money on the basis of policy outcomes.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gorton.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is clear as crystal in the email sent by Dean Mighell. When the ALP was on its knees financially the unions swooped in and used their financial power to seek an outcome from the Labor Party, and they got the outcome. So cash for outcomes was the order of the day when the Leader of the Opposition was in charge of this area of policy—$11.1 million from the CFMEU and $4 million from the ETU flowed to the Labor Party, and they got the outcome they wanted. The Leader of the Opposition can prove me wrong. He can prove us all wrong by reversing his position and supporting the ABCC and the ROC. That will prove that he is not the cat's paw of the union. If he does not, unfortunately, he stands condemned.