Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain to the House why the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission is necessary to protect the agriculture sector and our hardworking farmers?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I note that this is an incredibly important issue. After Dyson Heydon's findings in the trade union royal commission, the CFMEU, which has donated over $11 million to the Labor Party since 2000, is seen to have 113 representatives before the courts and 1,129 breaches of law. I also note the member for Parkes' interest in this, especially because of the Dubbo cancer centre that is about to be constructed. One might easily draw parallels between the Dubbo cancer centre that is being constructed and the Melbourne Comprehensive Cancer Centre which was being constructed. At the Melbourne Comprehensive Cancer Centre, when being constructed, CFMEU members stopped subcontractors from entering the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Parkville and another building site in Footscray. The CFMEU officials and union members attended at both of these sites and prevented Grocon subcontractors from going on the sites. Supreme Court injunctions were in place restraining the CFMEU from preventing, hindering or interfering with free access to and free egress from all Victorian sides, but of course it did not stop them. This is a body who believe they are above the law.

All we are trying to do with the ABCC is remove the law of the jungle and return the rule of law. The member would be interested, because he wants to get the inland rail built. We saw with the Lendlease sites, especially with the Sunshine Coast hospital, the CFMEU, once more, being ordered to cease a week-long strike blitz that is trying to force the builder, Lendlease, to sign a deal in breach of the federal government rules covering multimillion dollar projects. They use their power to bully. They use their power to try and create a mechanism where it is not the rule of law that runs the place but them.

The effect of the CFMEU can be seen all the way through here. Just lately we have seen the minister for agriculture up in Queensland lose her job. When she became the minister for agriculture she said of her experience, 'I grown my own vegetables occasionally.' So the CFMEU rep gets the job there. But nothing could outdo what we are seeing here with Senator Kimberley Kitching. The member for Isaacs is actually laughing now. The member of Isaacs is going to stand by the bold commitment he has to so many facets of proper process, but we cannot see the member for Isaacs standing up at the moment for this complete imbroglio which is Senator Kimberley Kitching, because he knows that it stinks to high hell.

And up stands the member who created the smell! (Time expired)