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

Last night when I went to bed I checked my emails. Most of us in this place probably have that email in which you get sent the front page of The Australian the night before. I read the front page with incredulousness as to what I was reading. I thought, 'Surely, this is a bad dream. I'll put the iPad down, and it won't be the case when I pick it up tomorrow morning.' On the front page of The Australian was another story about union corruption. The ALP's biggest union affiliate, the shoppies union, has been paying 10 per cent of member's dues in commission to Coles and Woolworths.

I'm a big boy. I've learnt through bitter experience that you don't always believe what you read in the papers, but here's a story written in The Australian by Ewin Hannan. This is an extraordinary arrangement which, if it's true, generously—one might argue—compensates supermarket giants by deducting union fees from the pay of thousands of their workers. Thousands of their workers are paying a fee to their employer via their unions. The fee turns out to be about 10 per cent of their union fees.

I wonder how many Coles and Woolworths employees actually know that some of their hard-earned dollars are being paid as a reward, as a commission, back to Coles and Woolies, for Coles and Woolies to encourage their workers to join the shoppies union. It's an absolute disgrace, if true, because some of these workers are the lowest paid in our community.

In an answer provided to a Senate inquiry, the shoppies union confirmed for the first time that the commission paid to Coles and Woolworths had been unusually high, 10 per cent of their union members' dues. It pays a lower 2½ per cent commission to KFC, and no payment is made to McDonald's to deduct union fees. In a statement to The Australian yesterday, union National Secretary Gerard Dwyer admitted that the arrangement, 'needed to be reviewed'. Why is it that all these arrangements need to be reviewed once they're under the spotlight? Woolworths revealed that the fee charge to the union would finally be reduced following the introduction of a new payroll system. Despite the union finally acknowledging the percentage amount, Coles and Woolies have continued to refuse to reveal the commission rate.

The union has been under scrutiny over controversial pay deals with big employers, including Coles and Woolies, that contain zero or below-award penalty rates. SDA members pay annual union fees of between $205 and $509 a year. The Australian Electoral Commission records show Woolies and Coles passed on union dues totalling $7.95 million to the union's Queensland branch in 2015-16. That would suggest that these employees are paying somewhere around about $790,000 in undisclosed commissions to Coles and Woolies. This is absolutely extraordinary!

Following questions from The Australian, Woolworths said it had recently completed a review of the arrangement with the union and that they were going to reduce their commission down to $20,000 from somewhere around $400,000 previously. It's an absolute disgrace. Coles and Woolies should hang their heads in shame.