Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the findings of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, which found 'widespread and deep-seated' misconduct by union officials;

(2) recognises the outstanding work of the Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce (Taskforce) in NSW, Queensland, Victoria and the ACT, which are investigating 34 referrals of alleged criminal breaches from the Royal Commission;

(3) calls on the Queensland Government to overturn the decision to withdraw from participating in the Taskforce; and

(4) condemns the Queensland Government and Australian Labor Party for putting their union mates before Queensland's lowest paid and most vulnerable workers.

The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption found widespread, ongoing and deep-seated misconduct by union officials. Labor and their socialist chapter, the Greens, opposed the royal commission and opposed the government's efforts to clean up union corruption. Why would they be happy for unions to continue to exploit their members and engage in corruption, bribery, thuggery and maintaining links to organised crime? The answer is: political donations—the rivers of cash that are collected from hardworking union members and that are funnelled into Labor and the Greens. Unions spent $20 million in donations and campaigns against the coalition. Good unions have had a proud tradition of protecting workers' interests in this country for many generations, but the royal commission shone a light on disgraceful practices and dodgy deals and uncovered evidence of just how far some unions, supported by their Labor mates, betrayed their membership.

For evidence of betrayal, one only needs to look at the Leader of the Opposition. As national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Mr Shorten authorised agreements to cut or remove penalty rates for low-paid workers. In at least one agreement he endorsed the removal of penalty rates for cleaners, without giving them any compensation. At the same time, the employer, Cleanevent, turned around and paid Mr Shorten's union $25,000 per year. It was Mr Shorten who happily stripped away penalty rates from Australia's lowest paid workers in return for secret cash payments to his union. Mr Shorten has the audacity to cry crocodile tears over the decision of the Fair Work Commission to change penalty rates, when it was Mr Shorten, in 2013, who introduced the legislation that requires the commission to review penalty rates every four years. He is the architect of the policy framework that brought about this decision.

The royal commission also examined many cases of alleged union corruption. In my home state of Queensland, then Builders Labourers Federation secretary and later CFMEU president, David Hanna, allegedly received more than $150,000 of free goods and services from Mirvac to upgrade his luxury home in Cornubia in 2013. Mirvac allegedly organised the work in order to receive favourable treatment from unions. In another case the Queensland and Northern Territory branch of the CFMEU attempted to set fire to documents that it had been ordered to produce to the royal commission. These examples highlight the need for more work to be done to uproot union corruption, but in January this year the Palaszczuk Labor government announced it was withdrawing from the Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce. This move can only be seen as Labor pandering to its union masters to secure its continued supply of donations.

The royal commission made 120 references of alleged unlawful conduct to law enforcement agencies, and the work of the joint police taskforce is invaluable. To date, action by the joint police taskforce and the working group of regulators to deal with civil referrals has resulted in six convictions for offences including blackmail, obstruction of a Commonwealth official and giving false testimony. An additional 13 matters are before the court, including a number of high-profile former union officials who are accused of fraud, blackmail and making secret deals with employers for their own benefit. These cases show that Queensland is not immune from union corruption. As recently as January this year, suspicions have been raised over the legitimacy of more than $700,000 of credit card spending in the Queensland branch of the CFMEU.

It is totally unacceptable that Labor would support a system where the interests of workers can be traded away and where employers can be held to ransom for industrial peace. Just last week we had the ACTU secretary, a union leader with great influence, promote an opt-in, opt-out attitude to lawfulness, encouraging people to take the law into their own hands and degrading our democracy. As I have said before, it is an absolute disgrace that the Labor Party continues to support and receive support from organisations that live outside the laws that we here are elected to make.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this the same royal commission that Dyson Heydon was the commissioner for? And is this the same Dyson Heydon who was the guest speaker at a Liberal Party fundraiser during the time in which he was the commissioner for the royal commission into trade unions? Let's just be honest here when we are talking about party donations and party fundraisers. This particular royal commission was nothing but a witch-hunt and the person in charge of the witch-hunt was nothing but a stooge for the Liberal Party and in fact was going to be the guest speaker at a Liberal Party fundraiser where all moneys raised were going straight back to the Liberal Party.

So, before we listen to those opposite, let us just set the record straight about what this disgraceful royal commission sought to do. It was about nothing more than trying to tear down political opponents, which is all we see from those opposite. In the contribution just made by the previous speaker, there was no mention of employers who do the wrong thing and no mention of the fact that every single day there are employers in our community who do not pay workers, who rip off workers and who do not pay super. There was no mention or condemnation of the fact that every single day there are 457 visa workers in this country being underpaid or not employed in the job for which they were brought here. In fact, a Fair Work Ombudsman report exposed that one in four 457 visa workers in this country are working here on rates of pay that undercut Australian wages. Where is the government's condemnation of those employers? Instead, once again, all they seek to do is bash unions. That is all they seem to do: bashing unions and bashing workers.

Let's set the record straight about penalty rates. This government and members of the Liberal Party ignore the fact that, when you collectively bargain, your agreement must pass a 'better off overall' test. Sure, the workers may trade for a lower Sunday rate because they get a higher Monday to Friday rate. Now have a chat to your small businesses in your electorate and see if they want to pay a higher Monday to Friday rate. They very quickly go quiet when you talk to them about the fact that, if they want an agreement that reduces Sunday penalty rates, they have to trade it off and increase the rates of pay Monday to Friday. That is exactly what happened with the workers that were mentioned previously—a higher base rate.

Those opposite talk about secret payments. They are not secret payments; they are union membership fees. There was something like a payroll deduction. Workers signed up to a union and they said, 'Yes, I authorise the employer to deduct my union dues and pass it on to the union.' There is nothing secret about that. It has been happening for over a hundred years here in Australia, with workers saying, 'Yes, I am proud to join my union, and, if the employer is able to do so, deduct the fee and pass it on to my union.' Payroll deduction is not a secret, and it is nothing new.

Just to highlight just how ridiculous this government and their ludicrous laws are, we need go no further than the comments made by Justice Tony North just last week about the Turnbull government's Australian Building and Construction Commission. He said:

For goodness sake, I don’t know what the inspectorate is doing. I must say it's a terrible waste of everybody's time.

What caused such an outcry from Justice North was the fact that this government took two CFMEU officials to court for having a cup of tea. You would think that they would have more important issues on their hands than prosecuting CFMEU officials for having a cup of tea. This is yet another example of how this government are purely and simply going after their political opponents.

It is an insult to our democracy for this government to try to tear down a labour movement that has existed in this country longer than their political party. They are using our judicial system, our parliament and any means they can to attack their opponents. This is not Cambodia. This is not a country which struggles with democracy. We have strong foundations of democracy in this country; yet all we see from those opposite—whether it be the ABCC, the royal commission into trade unions or the registered organisations legislation—are their attempts to tear down our democracy. I am proud to say that I am a unionist and I am proud each and every day to be one. They stand up for working people to make sure working people's rights are protected, particularly against this government.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am grateful to my friend the member for Wide Bay for proposing this important motion. He has spent his entire working life serving the people of Queensland, upholding the law with honour in the Queensland Police Service.

I have spoken often in this place about the terrible impact of union malfeasance on our entire community—the cost blowouts, the delays, the damage to productivity, the undermining of the rule of law, the intimidation, corruption and bullying. When I look at the vital public infrastructure in my electorate of Fisher that my constituents are so desperately crying out for, I think of all the billions of dollars we have wasted as a country in paying for the results of this lawlessness.

The Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce has been making a real difference in Queensland. As recently as December last year, its officers arrested and charged three men, including one prominent member of the CFMEU, over corrupt secret commissions. By withdrawing from this special task force , the Queensland state Labor government is accepting the loss of additional Federal Police officers, $1.8 million in funding for the state and casting aside vulnerable workers—the very workers that the unions are supposed to represent.

There is no doubt that the union movement has enjoyed preferential treatment and access to the Queensland Labor government. It is senior ministers have regularly met with the CFMEU, the ETU, the AFULE the AWU, the AMWU, the plumbers union and of course United Voice.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why not, you say, but let's see that sort of reciprocal access to business. And the unions have certainly expanded the number of people they claim to represent since this state Labor government's election. The Labor government has gone on a hiring spree since they were elected—that is certainly one way of pushing down the unemployment figures; it is also a good way to get more people into the public sector union movement. The most recent figures, which are for the quarter ending September 2016, demonstrate that the Queensland Labor government employs a record number of bureaucrats—212,853 full-time equivalent employees to be precise. This compares with 196,856 in the months before they were elected—16,000 new public sector employees or, more accurately, many more than that since many of these full-time equivalent workers will be made up of multiple part-time employees.

Who is paying for these employees? Of course it is the Queensland taxpayer. However, expanding the potential market for unions with new state employees was not enough for this state Labor government; you also need to increase your conversion rate to really make your money. So, in May 2015, the Palaszczuk government reintroduced the union encouragement policy. For those who do not know how the Labor union alliance works, this policy document makes for eye-opening reading. It commits the government machinery in Queensland to encouraging union membership. It also gives unionists time off, paid for by the government, to learn how to become better unionists. It mandates the new government employees be given a statement saying that the government encourages them to join a union, and it ensures that unions will be given the details of new employees—presumably, so that they can harangue them to join up. If it was not so serious, you would think this was some sort of sick joke. Yet the Palaszczuk government has got away with it without so much as a whimper.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of 2013 suggests that more than 40 per cent of public sector employees were union members when the figure across the board is only half that—that is, one in five. If that percentage holds up for the government's new employees, the union movement in Queensland looks set to make millions from their expanded membership. The Queensland state Labor government should be ashamed of this clearly self-serving decision, which has, at its very rotten core, a Queensland taxpayer-funded protection racket for their union mates. We have just seen, last week, the ACTU secretary Sally McManus and her entirely misguided, a la carte views on the rule of law. This House should condemn the Queensland Labor government's decision. We and the media should continue to shine a bright light on their now state-sponsored world of union lawlessness. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Fairfax referring to unions. I declare an interest. I am a member of two unions—the AMWU and the Independent Education Union. I would also point out that, as a solicitor, I have worked in private practice and for the Queensland minerals council. So I have worked in unions but also in small business, as an adviser and for mining companies.

The working lives of all Australians, as any one who knows history can attest, would be completely different if not for the advocacy of our unions. The first unions formed in Australia in the early 19th century, as 'craft unions', to increase the low wages of highly skilled urban workers and improve their workplace conditions. Midway through the 19th century, stonemasons won the right to an eight-hour day when their 'society' forced the issue by giving an ultimatum to employers. It was not until 1920 that most remaining Australian workers enjoyed that right.

Queensland, especially, has a proud history of unions fighting for workers' rights. The 1894 shearers' strike, although unsuccessful, was a turning point for the union movement in Queensland. In fact, the very livelihood of shearers was under threat in 1894. Shearers had been organising the unions for a few years already by 1894, in order to protect their rights. In response, graziers formed their own union, the Pastoralists Employers Association. In 1890 the pastoralists agreed that they would lower the wages of shearers, extend their working hours and retain the right to withhold their wages until the end of the shearing season—conditions that would, no doubt, be rejected by the shearers' union.

The shearers took strike action, but the conservative colonial government at the time supported the pastoralists, by sending in more than 1,000 armed soldiers and special constables, some armed with Nordenfelt machine guns. After some of the strike leaders were arrested, and with the very real threat of bloodshed, the unions called an end to the strike. But this was a turning point for unions and the working class—the point at which they realised that they needed a voice; they needed to have the worker's voice heard in politics so that Australian laws reflected not only the pastoralists' interests but the interests of everyday Australians. So there would be capitalists represented but also everyday working Australians. Five years later Queensland actually had the world's first ever Labor government.

Unions are still vitally important for all Australian workers. Even non-union members benefit from the conditions fought for by those who pay their dues. Unions obtained annual leave, sick pay, workers compensation, and health and safety standards. I think I can safely say that no gain has ever been spontaneously offered by an employer. Through the prism of the great achievements that unions have made for Australian workers, the $80 million trade union royal commission looks even more like the political witch-hunt it was.

Labor has always said that it will not stand for wrongdoing or corruption in unions, and I restate that. When there is wrongdoing, it should be investigated and punished. Crooks and thugs should be rooted out and brought before the courts. There have been 34 referrals of alleged criminal breaches from the royal commission. Those alleged breaches should be investigated, and the full force of the law should be applied where criminal acts are proven. Labor will always believe in the rule of law.

In Queensland, which was a major focus of the commission, only one union official, out of several hundred officials and organisers working in Queensland, was referred for prosecution. I am sure the member for Fairfax, as a former police officer, would understand that. One single Queensland referral is a long way from the widespread and deep-seated misconduct in the union movement that Justice Heydon referred to in his report. Of course, even one referral of a union official is one too many. It is a disgrace and cannot be ignored. But the member for Fairfax might also note that in Queensland the Heydon royal commission actually recommended more charges be laid against building industry executives than against anyone else. To put the number of referrals from the Abbott-Turnbull trade union royal commission into perspective: there were a total of 93 referrals, across Australia, relating to 45 persons or entities. Contrast that with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has made 1,950 referrals—and increasing—to authorities. That is a royal commission that we absolutely needed to have, and I am very proud that Julia Gillard and Labor made it happen.

The Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce has been set up by the Turnbull government supposedly to 'bring union thugs to justice and protect hardworking Queenslanders'. After spending $80 million on a royal commission, which only referred one Queensland union official for prosecution, how can the Prime Minister justify millions more dollars of taxpayers' money being spent on continuing this political witch-hunt? It is especially disingenuous for a member of the Queensland LNP. (Time expired)

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to correct the record, I want to pay tribute to the member for Wide Bay who put forward this motion today. I am the member for Fairfax. What a great member the member for Wide Bay is and the other speaker here today, who just spoke, the member for Fisher. Not only are these two gentlemen such wonderful advocates for the region of the Sunshine Coast but the first is a former police officer and the second is a former construction barrister—two men who know more about this topic than anybody in the opposition, as well demonstrated by the speakers opposite thus far.

The member who has just left the House very proudly said that Labor always believes in the rule of law. Match that with the other speaker who proudly said, 'I'm a proud unionist. I am very proud to be a unionist.' Only last week, Sally McManus, the new ACTU secretary, made very clear that she does not see any problem with breaking the rule of law. Leigh Sales on 7.30 said to Sally McManus:

Yet nonetheless, we live in a country where there are laws that are established by a parliament that all citizens are expected to abide by. So, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with those laws, you said that you believe in the rule of law?

Sally McManus said:

Yeah, I believe in the rule of law where the law is fair, when the law is right. But when it's unjust, I don't think there's a problem with breaking it.

That is the problem with the modern union movement and that is the problem with today's Labor Party.

I agree with the earlier speaker's very proud historical narrative of the union movement in Australia and I believe that the union movement should be proud of their past. What they should be dreadfully ashamed of is their present. What they should be ashamed of is that the very party that purports to represent workers is undermining workers. What they should be ashamed of is the fact that today's union movement defies the rule of law. It is not just one or two people who are a pox on the Labor movement. It is their fundamental business model. It is the way they do business, and that is the inherent problem of the union movement today. Having listened to the last speaker, I thought I had better look up the Labor Party website. You will be happy to know that it has a heading saying:

We'll put people first. Standing up for middle class and working class people.

What absolute rot. The suggestion by the first speaker was that the coalition government does not look after workers. Indeed we do, and that is what the ABCC was all about. Later this week we will have a debate in the House about a fair work amendment protecting vulnerable workers. That is the coalition government going into bat for the very people the Labor Party and the unions pretend they want to represent.

As the member for Fisher outlined, we in the state of Queensland have been victim particularly to the CFMEU. Queensland and Victoria almost compete, it seems, at the CFMEU level to see who can break the most laws. Three out of four issues in the sector attracting the commissioner's attention are in either Victoria or Queensland. Lady Cilento Children's Hospital was hit by the CFMEU; the Gold Coast University Hospital was hit; the Brisbane Supreme Court project was hit; the Queensland Institute of Medical Research project was hit; and something that is close to us three members is the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, and it was hit by the CFMEU.

At the end of the day, the Trade Union Joint Police Taskforce was established to start looking at these very problems. They were investigating 34 referrals, and what has the Labor state government in Queensland done? They have withdrawn participation in that task force, leaving vulnerable workers without any safety whatsoever. Let me give some gratuitous advice to the members opposite: when they next go to their website, their big banner should read, 'We'll put unions first, throwing middle-class and working-class people under the bus.' It is a disgrace and the union movement needs to be fixed.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion on trade unions moved by the member for Wide Bay, Mr O'Brien—a young member by National Party standards who grew up in a time of Australia's greatest affluence and social stability, underpinned by the union movement. Wide Bay is of course a constituency in Queensland—a state referred to in the 1980s, during the last period of sustained National Party rule, as the 'Moonlight State' because corruption in all its forms was so rife in government, the public sector and the Queensland police. Things have not always been that brilliant in New South Wales either, probably since about the time of the Rum Rebellion. But if there were a reality TV series called 'State of origin for dodgy dealing and influence peddling' I think the Queensland Nationals, captained by Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, vice-captained by Russ Hinze, would win every time.

This motion proceeds on several false assumptions. The first is that for some reason Labor members would want to defend anyone charged with and found guilty of a serious criminal offence. This is clearly absurd. The second false assumption is that, for reasons unexplained, the Queensland government should just give the Commonwealth free police resources to assist with an ongoing ill-defined inquiry into some unnamed and identified Queensland union people. This is thought bubble, Turnbull government style leadership par excellence. I invite the honourable member to come to my electorate and meet the families that have benefited from the work of unions such as the HSU, United Voice, TWU, USU, the Nurses and Midwives Association and many other unions.

Not content with trying to frame the South Australian government over the failings of federal government energy policy, presumably this government now wants to hit the Queensland government with a gratuitous whacking, for no particular reason. With the ever-broadening choice of Labor state and territory governments to pick from, I suppose we should all just learn to expect more of this sort of thing from a Judas goat Prime Minister leading his flock to the slaughter.

Thirdly, the motion reveals that for this government any form of union activity is necessarily nascent thuggery. For them, the very existence of trade unions remains a conspiracy against free market principles and the right to exploit workers at every point. I know I am harking back to first principles, but I would remind this government that the rights to organise and to bargain collectively are basic democratic principles, irrespective of what this self-interested mob want to believe. So I freely admit to having been a member of Australia's most powerful workers collective for close to 40 years. It is called the AMA, and I have done very nicely. I am also proud to say that I am a member of the HSU.

When this ramshackle collective on the other side attack unions, what they really need to recognise is they are attacking the things that most of us consider basic rights, such as the 40-hour week, penalty rates, annual leave, maternity leave, equal pay for women, sickness benefits and occupational health and safety programs. In my lifetime we have had the unions and their heroes such as Jack Mundey to thank for the green bans which have protected much of Sydney's historical architecture from destruction. We also have them to thank for the fight against conscription and the Vietnam War, for which I will be eternally grateful.

In my industry, health, it is quite clear that the Health Services Union is continuing to fight for better conditions for all workers, particularly for the very lowly paid. We are of course aware that we work in a 24-hour industry, but health workers should be compensated fairly for working in extremely difficult conditions, and the fight goes on. The HSU is fighting to beat privatisation of New South Wales public hospitals. It has fought to achieve better death and disability protection for those most valuable workers, paramedics, and has successfully fought for return of superannuation money not paid to some of the lowest paid health services workers.

The principles that the trade union movement stands for have not changed. The Turnbull government is not so much conservative as reactionary in its headlong rush to target trade unions. It has forgotten that what most of us believe to be civilised working conditions are the result of years of work by the union movement.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of this motion, not because of party political affiliation but because this matter is an important one to this parliament, our community and our economy. I come from a state that has more often than not had governments in which significant decisions were accompanied by payments from those who benefited from those decisions. This was not a characteristic of just one side of politics but rather of both. Until the Greiner government of 1988, it was baked in—the cost of doing business. The people who suffered were the people. No-one liked it, but no-one had the courage to do anything about it.

Those of us who lived during these times like to think of the Greiner government as an inflection point in the history of our state. It was not to be. The name Obeid will be forever synonymous with corruption in government. Corruption is corrosive. It eats away at the bonds of trust that community is built on. When our institutions are corrupted, all of us suffer. Corruption undermines meritocracy, it misallocates resources, it distributes basic rights in a skewed and random fashion, it destroys our understanding of how institutions are meant to work, and it makes us cynical—so cynical, indeed, that people may, ironically, conclude that some laws are unjust because they do not apply equally.

Once corruption is baked into the system, it normalises deviancy. In those societies, both in the present and in the past, in which corruption has been and is pervasive, those who sit at the pinnacle of the corruption so often argue that the payments are necessary because no-one plays by the rules—that the law is optional. Those who benefit from this corruption argue that law is optional because it is unjust. To paraphrase Burke, for corruption to thrive it does not require good people to be corrupt; they just need to accept it.

The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption concluded that this is exactly what has happened in the trade union movement: good people have become complicit in a system that now not only accepts payments that pervert the cause of what the union movement is meant to be about but actually normalise these payments. It is a system, according to the royal commission, that has taken corrupt payments and turned them into facilitation payments. People often cite the Cleanevent deal, in which cleaners earning the minimum amount had their penalty rates traded away in return for payments of $25,000 a year to the union. However, more recently, in January this year concerns were raised about the legitimacy of over $700,000 in credit card spending in the Queensland branch of the CFMEU, which makes it even more curious that the Queensland Police Service chose this exact moment to advise the Australian Federal Police that it will no longer participate in the joint police task force into union corruption. You kind of wonder, when this happens and when you look at how much money the CFMEU donated to the Queensland Labor Party, why there is no interest in this matter from those in the media. Have they too come to accept that union corruption is baked in and not worth doing anything about?

Of course, this is not just about union corruption; this is also about employer corruption and the lack of fortitude that they have so often shown in dealing with the unions. They should be condemned just as harshly, if not more. If people in the system are not willing or able to shine a light on these payments then, given how much a community suffers from corruption, it is critical that this government—in fact, any government—act to bring these payments into the light.

That is why today the Turnbull government has announced that it will seek to outlaw secret payments between unions and employers—what the royal commission called corrupting benefits and what the rest of us would call outrageous corruption. And, of course, with the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Act, union members now have more say over how their union is run. Consistent with that, this government will mandate that unions must disclose to their members any money that they receive from employers so that union leaders can be held accountable. Corruption takes what should be common benefit—whether that be in the form of better pay and conditions or more affordable and efficient infrastructure and public buildings—and privatises the benefits to the few insiders presiding over this house of cards. Corruption of this nature hardens the arteries of society. It ensures immobility and regression, but worst of all it makes all of us— (Time expired)

Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today as a member of parliament, a teacher aide, and a teacher aide delegate and union member with my union, United Voice, to speak to the motion by the member for Wide Bay asking the House to acknowledge the findings of the royal commission into trade union governance. It is a shame he is not going to stick around to listen to what I have to say about trade unions; he may actually have learned something. I am pleased that the member moved this motion—and, again, I am very sad that he could not be bothered to stay around and listen—because, after an extraordinary but unbelievable spend of $46 million on the commission, just one referral has resulted. If 'widespread and deep-seated' is a measurement of one, either I need a new dictionary or Australia is a much smaller country than I imagined it to be. What I understand to be widespread and deep-seated in this country is support for a minimum wage, superannuation, penalty rates and our world-class universal healthcare system, Medicare—all of which were fought for and won by unions.

I also rise to speak to the parts of Mr O'Brien's motion that go to the House recognising the work of the joint police task force and calling on the Queensland government to overturn their decision to withdraw from participating in the task force. Madam Deputy Speaker, you really have to ask why a government that continues to pull our country into debt has committed another $21 million to further investigating charges that have already been investigated by the commission, which found there was nothing further to answer. In the state of Queensland, acting independently of the state government, police commissioner Ian Stewart was very staunch in his decision to remove Queensland Police from the union corruption investigation. Mr Stewart told the Courier Mail:

… he could not afford valuable police resources to be swallowed up by the joint Trade Union Taskforce when all matters referred to it were concluded.

Finally, I rise today to speak to point (4) in Mr O'Brien's motion. This part of the motion goes to 'union mates', as he calls them, and the 'lowest paid and most vulnerable workers'. What I wanted to share with Mr O'Brien—unfortunately, he has left the chamber—was that the last part of his motion is a bit of an oxymoron. I will explain what a union is. I will put it as plainly as I can. I will explain it as any early childhood educator would explain it to a five-year-old. 'Union' means joining together. It is pretty simple. And 'mate'? That is pretty easy too. It means a friend. When set in the context of work, 'union mates' means the joining together of friends where work is their common purpose. What I would say to Mr O'Brien is: union mates are workers. They are workers like paramedics, public servants and school cleaners. They are radiologists. They are teacher aides, just like I was. They are retail and hospitality workers. Plainly and simply, the Queensland government and the ALP support union mates because they support workers—workers paying their taxes, unlike many of the businesses that the Turnbull government wants to give a tax cut to. Workers are raising families while having to suffer a cut to their family tax benefit, and they are looking forward to owning their own home if this government will, just for a moment, stop opening every single front door to a millionaire investor.

This motion really is quite extraordinary, isn't it? There are more than 360,000 union members in Queensland. There was a $46 million royal commission into their unions, and one referral. So let's call this motion for what it is. It is just another attack on workers, an attack on working people who elected each and every one of us in this House to fight for decent jobs, safe jobs. They elected us. This motion is an attack on workers who have the right to insist that a government governs for high-quality health care and education for every Australian. This is for every Australian and this motion is an attack on a fair go in life.

I am a little ashamed that Mr O'Brien did not stick around. He felt this motion was incredibly important, today, this International Day of Happiness, but this motion does not go one way at all towards happiness for any worker in this country. It goes right towards—shamefully—demonising every worker in this country instead.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Sitting suspended from 13:35 to 16: 02