Bert Van Manen (Forde, 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 why it is important that employer and employee organisations always act in the best interests of their members? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for his question. Right now, the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Bill 2017 is being debated in the Senate, as we speak—right now, in the Senate.

Mr Burke interjecting—

Before you comment on the speck in your brother's eye, you take the log out of your own, Manager of Opposition Business. Right now, you could actually vote in favour of the corrupting benefits legislation in the Senate, which you are opposing and about which the Leader of the Opposition said on 20 September 2015:

It doesn't matter if the criminality is from a union rep or it is a pin stripe suit-wearing director in a boardroom of Australia. For us, we have zero tolerance.

If Labor really has zero tolerance of corrupt behaviour, whether it is by employers or union officials, it could vote right now to pass the corrupting benefits legislation in the Senate and in doing so send a very strong signal to the union movement and employers that it does have zero tolerance. But what we know is that the Leader of the Opposition talks a big game in Canberra and is a mouse when it comes to Trades Hall. He talks big and he acts small. Once again we have to recognise that this man has no backbone when it comes to dealing with the union movement.

The Heydon royal commission uncovered quite a number of sophisticated networks of corrupting benefits: Thiess John Holland, $300,000 to the Victorian AWU; ACI Operations, $500,000; Cleanevent, $75,000; Unibilt gave $32,000 to the Leader of the Opposition's own campaign in 2007; Chiquita Mushrooms, $24,000; and Winslow Constructors, $200,000—all to the Australian Workers' Union Victorian branch, which happens to be the union that the Leader of the Opposition was the secretary of and the national president of. There was a sophisticated network of corrupting benefits that Commissioner Heydon said were simply the tip of the iceberg.

The Leader of the Opposition could finally show some spine when it comes to dealing with the CFMEU. He could finally act like a true Labor leader, like John Cain when he was the Premier of Victoria or like Bob Hawke when he was the Prime Minister of Australia, both of whom ensured that the BLF was deregistered by the federal and Victorian governments. But the problem with the Leader of the Opposition is that he is compromised by his relationship with the CFMEU. The CFMEU is in every single forum of the Victorian Labor Party. It's given $10 million to the Labor Party—$3 million since he was the Leader of the Opposition. It's time for the Labor Party to stop being so weak, to show some strength and to actually support the corrupting benefits legislation.