Nola Marino (Forrest, 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 how industrial relations reform will help restore the rule of law on building sites across the country and ensure unions are run for hardworking Australians and not for union leaders?

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

I thank the member for Forrest for her question. This week the government has passed two signature pieces of legislation: the Registered Organisations Commission bill and the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill. These are signature pieces of reform of the industrial relations architecture in Australia. They will improve the way unions are run and organised through the Registered Organisations Commission so they operate on behalf of workers and not corrupt union bosses. They will restore the rule of law on building and construction sites in Australia through the ABCC.

It is very important that misbehaviour in unions be reported to the appropriate authorities. The Fair Work Commission has had a hotline for some period of time on which misbehaviour can be reported. The Registered Organisations Commission will, of course, have a very similar hotline. It is important that when people have information about a particular union leader—

Mr Dutton interjecting—

that they do not keep it in the family, as the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection says, but, in fact, ensure the Fair Work Commission and now the Registered Organisations Commission have that information. We on this side of the House would like to know, and I think the Australian public would like to know, what information the member for Isaacs had, for example, that caused him to advise the Leader of the Opposition not to support Kimberley Kitching for the Senate. We know, from the trade union royal commission, that Kimberley Kitching was doing the right of entry tests, including the safety tests, for union officials so they could pass and go onto worksites. We know that she used to summon other staff with a megaphone to her office—

Mr Danby interjecting—

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

The member for Melbourne Ports is warned.

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

which sits uneasily with the Labor Party's pretence of egalitarianism, but, nevertheless, apparently she used to do that, bizarrely.

A government member interjecting—

Exactly, with a megaphone. But what was it that so exercised the member for Isaacs's mind that he threatened to resign if Ms Kitching was put into the Senate by the Leader of the Opposition? Obviously it was a very serious matter.

So certainly the Kitching affair goes to the judgement of the Leader of the Opposition—there is no doubt about that—and his fitness to be the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, because he overlooked the advice of people like the member for Corio, former Senator Conroy and the member for Isaacs. It also goes very much to the character of the member for Isaacs, the person who wants to again be the Attorney-General of this country. It goes to his character not only that he threatened to resign from the frontbench because of the inappropriateness of Kimberley Kitching but also that he did not resign. Why did he not resign? Why has he not resigned when he promised to resign? What kind of character has he shown to the Australian public that he made such a serious threat and then did not follow through with it? The member for Isaacs should come to the dispatch box and explain.