Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry, representing the Minister for Employment. Can he outline how the government's commitment to industrial relations reform will help protect employees' pay and conditions by putting an end to the corrupting benefits paid by businesses to unions? Secondly, can he outline why it is important that the union movement be run honestly on behalf of all hardworking Australians?

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

I thank the Father of the House, the member for Menzies, for his question. He has had a career-long interest in industrial relations reform, and of course the government's latest announcements today about corrupting benefits are the next instalment in this government's commitment to bringing about honest workplaces that put the interests of the workers first, not the interests of the union bosses.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

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

The member for Gorton is warned.

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

The Heydon royal commission identified a systematic shaking down of Australian businesses by the unions in favour of the unions and at the expense of the workers. Commissioner Heydon called them corrupting benefits, and the government have announced today that we will take action not only to ban those corrupting benefits but also to criminalise the activity and put in prison the union leaders, and the bosses if necessary, who engage in corrupting benefits.

What would be a good example of a corrupting benefit? For those of us who have been in the parliament for a little while, the very obvious one is when Bruce Wilson, as head of the AWU, took money from the unions and did house renovations on properties in Melbourne. He was using money, given by businesses to the union, to renovate Julia Gillard's then home in Melbourne. But there are lots of other good examples of corrupting benefits. For example, Thiess John Holland paid the AWU in Victoria $300,000 when they built the EastLink freeway. They issued false invoices on the AWU to disguise the payments as training, back strain research, AWU magazine advertisements, forum tickets and conference sponsorships. As the royal commission found, there was no evidence of any of those things actually being provided; nor were these payments ever disclosed to the members of the AWU, who the unions were supposed to represent. The question for the Leader of the Opposition is: does he condone such activity at that time by Thiess John Holland and the AWU—or, for example, by Winslow Constructors, who paid AWU Victoria $200,000 and provided the union with lists of employees' names who were then joined up to the union without their knowledge for one purpose: to expand the power of the AWU in the Labor Party in Victoria for the benefit of the AWU union leaders? Again, does the Leader of the Opposition condone that activity of the AWU—or that of Chiquita Mushrooms, who paid $24,000 to casualise the mushroom-picking workforce? It was invoiced as paid education leave but never delivered. The legislation that we will introduce will wipe out these corrupting benefits. Labor needs to get on board and prove that they put workers ahead of union bosses.