Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I join with you, Mr Speaker, and express warmest regards on behalf of all Labor members. Unfortunately, our leader can't be in the House at the moment, but I'm sure if he were he would be expressing his warmest regards to the delegation from Ireland and talking about the very strong links that exist not only between this parliament and our friends in Ireland but between the Australian Labor Party and our friends in Ireland. It's lovely to have you here today.

I was talking about the important role that unions play in creating equality in this country. Unions are essentially what we do about inequality in Australia, because if you look at the difference between those countries that have narrowed the gap in inequality and those that have increased the gap between the haves and have-nots there is one thing in common: it's their industrial relations system and the existence of strong, responsible unions. It matters a lot in electorates like mine, where employees earn less than the national average—certainly a lot less than the average they earn in the Prime Minister's electorate. And they think that the Prime Minister and those who serve him simply do not get what life is like for them.

I spend a lot of time travelling throughout the regions in my portfolio responsibility, and the thing that is brought home to me from town to town, from workplace to workplace, is the deep concern that people have about insecure work—whether it's the casualisation of work in their workplace, or whether it's the fact that they were once a permanent employee and they lost that job and they are now working maybe two or three days a fortnight in very precarious employment arrangements. Maybe they are described as an independent contractor with their own business. But when, in fact, they have no control over their working hours, their terms and conditions or their tools of trade, they are an employee by any other name. It is a problem right throughout regional Australia—precarious employment, insecure work, people wanting more hours than they have, people wanting a permanent job. People want a secure job so they can go to their bank manager and say, 'How about that loan application so that I can buy my home?'; so they can go to the bank manager and say, 'I need to get a replacement car because this one isn't doing it anymore'; so they can restructure their credit, so they are not continually on the credit treadmill.

Unions are what we do about insecure work. Unions in the workplace and unions in the industry are the people who are bargaining for secure work, bargaining for greater control over outsourcing of work and bargaining for a say over how labour hire is used in a workplace. Too often we see a responsible negotiation between a union and an employer being secured on a Monday and before the ink is even dry on that agreement workers are being sacked within the workplace and replaced by labour hire on lesser wages and conditions. This is not conscionable behaviour. This is what drives inequality and drives insecure work, and decent responsible unions are what we do about this. It is what we do about this.

There's been a lot of talk about the need for an injection of wage growth in this country. Australia, in short, needs a pay rise. Instead of grasping this challenge and putting in place the policies and structures which are going to be able to ensure that workers are able to bargain for and get the pay rise they deserve and the economy needs, the government is introducing legislation such as this, which drags us backwards and makes it harder for workers to be represented and to bargain for that pay rise that we need. It makes it harder for them to defend conditions that they already have. You may be aware that about 700,000 workers are likely to be affected by the Fair Work decision to remove certainly penalty rates from their wages and conditions. Cutting penalty rates will see a pay cut of around $77 a week for low and middle-income and working-class families. At the very same time that everyone from the Reserve Bank—the minister on some days and not on other days—is saying that Australians need and deserve a pay rise, they are supporting these changes. One member even described it as a gift to workers. They are supporting these changes that are making it harder for workers to make ends meet.

So, we do need some changes in our industrial relations laws. We need some changes that are going to make it easier for workers to bargain for and secure a pay rise. They deserve it, and the economy needs it. We need laws that will ensure that workers and their representatives will be able to bargain for job security, to bargain to put in place measures to do away with insecure work in their workplace, so that they can have decent, secure jobs wherever they live, wherever they work. We need to put in place laws that will enable unions, workers and their representatives to protect jobs in regional Australia so that the sacking of workers in these 70 jobs that are earmarked to be taken from Nowra, only to be transferred here to Canberra, can be stopped. A strong union in a workplace like that would ensure that those job cuts do not go ahead.

So, I implore all those members opposite, instead of coming in here and voting for this legislation today, to do the right thing by their electorates, to ensure not only that these laws do not go ahead but that we do something to protect the jobs of those people I've identified—particularly in the case of those Nationals members who'll bang the drum and talk to anyone who'll listen to them about the importance of decentralising work. Well, the first step in ensuring that we have more jobs in regional Australia is to protect the ones that are there at the moment. For these and so many other reasons, this bill should be rejected.

Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur wholeheartedly with the contribution of the member for Whitlam on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, and if I had time I would reiterate everything he just said. I'd like to share a story of a steward on a passenger vessel who, at the age of 49, died at sea, coming into port—a strong union man of the Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen's Association, which not long after his death amalgamated to form the Maritime Union of Australia. This man left behind a wife and two twin children. That wife was my mother, and those children were me and my brother. What I remember from that time was what the union did for us. The union was there from the beginning, from that tragic day, and for many, many months afterwards, supporting my family as we went through one of the most terrible times anyone could experience.

This bill is an attack on workers and on unions. It has no regard for the support unions provide workers and the ability for unions to step in when workers are facing some of their darkest days—the prospect of losing their jobs, their livelihoods and their families. We on this side hear it and see it all the time. If those opposite just went and spoke to the many, many workers who have lost their jobs through unscrupulous practices by companies, they would understand this, instead of attacking it. I suggest that they speak to the seafarers of the MV Portland. They lost not only their jobs but also their homes and their families. These are longlasting legacies of companies basically screwing them over. And this is also because of this government, which favours multinational companies over Australian workers. This bill makes false claims that will ensure equal footing for corporations and unions. This is nothing but a fallacy and a guise to deflect attention from this government's disdain for working Australians.

This is another way this government is ensuring that the balance of power in the labour market is skewed directly towards the interests of big business and big profits. By doing that, this bill imposes obligations on registered organisations and officers in excess of what is imposed on corporations and company directors. For example, schedule 2 imposes a framework for cancellation of registration of an organisation that is more expansive than that for winding up companies and corporations. In fact, there is nothing in the Corporations Act that would allow for a company that has a history of noncompliance with the law to be wound up, as is the case in this bill, which will give the ability to wind up a registered organisation such as a union for acting in this way.

But why doesn't this government concentrate its efforts and attention on ensuring that noncompliance in the labour market is dealt with? I hear about it and see it all the time—workers being screwed over by companies who are not complying with their legal obligations. What is this government doing to ensure workers are not being ripped off, or to stop companies and employers from stealing wages from their workers?

I'm going to tell another story, of a cleaner in Queensland who realised that she wasn't getting paid the penalty rates that legally she was entitled to receive. She went to her union because she thought, 'This is strange; why am I not getting penalty rates while other workers doing the same job as me, in the same building, are getting paid penalty rates?' What happened was she was penalised by her employer for raising this with the union. She was taken off many, many shifts and given a minimal shift one day a week. But what the union found was that it was not just this one worker that was getting ripped off; it was hundreds and hundreds of workers in the state of Queensland that were getting ripped off. What is this government doing to ensure that does not happen to any other worker? They are doing nothing—nothing. It is unions that are out there ensuring that our workplaces are compliant, and they only have small resources to do that. But this government doesn't seem to care.

If we put this example of noncompliance in the context of schedule 2 of this bill, that company should be dissolved. Yet it can continue to trade after a little fine, a slap on the wrist, and paying some back pay to those affected workers. But, if those workers took unprotected industrial action against that company for stealing their wages, this schedule would allow for that union's registration to be cancelled. This is not equal treatment under the law.

I go to schedule 1 of this bill, where the provisions say that orders to disqualify an officer can be applied for by the commissioner, the minister or 'a person with a sufficient interest'. This schedule does not provide for protections against vexatious claims, and goes far beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission. If a person is facing disqualification, the schedule requires a reverse onus of proof, where the person must prove to the court why it would be unjust to make an order for disqualification. Yet, under the Corporations Act, there is no such onus on a director. Heydon made a recommendation, No. 38 in his report, that an application for disqualification be given to the registered organisations regulator, for which there is an equivalent provision in the Corporations Act. But, again, this government wishes to treat unions and their members very differently from corporations and directors.

This bill breaches international law. It breaches the International Labour Organization's Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (No. 87), which we, Australia, are signatories to. I want to read out article 2 of this convention. It says:

Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.

Article 3 refers to the right of unions to draw up their own constitution and elect their representatives in full freedom, and organise their administration and activities and programs. Article 3.2 says:

The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof.

Article 4 says:

Workers' and employers' organisations shall not be liable to be dissolved or suspended by administrative authority.

Article 11 says:

Each Member of the International Labour Organisation for which this Convention is in force undertakes to take all necessary and appropriate measures to ensure that workers and employers may exercise freely the right to organise.

I make the point that a union is a collective of members and officials elected by its members, and what this bill proposes is that a third party be allowed to suspend or dissolve the rights of its members. Thus this bill is in breach of international law.

This bill also interferes in the rights of members to join an organisation which they may elect to amalgamate. The government claims that this bill ensures unions are treated the same as corporations. Yet does the government interfere in the corporate world of mergers and takeovers based on a pure public interest test, as proposed to be imposed on unions? No. There is no general public interest test for mergers; basically, it's competition only. And there is no test on whether corporations should merge based on previous wrongdoing or behaviour.

I just want to make a point about a former state secretary of the Liberal Party of Tasmania who then went on to become state secretary of the Liberal Party in Victoria who committed a number of fraudulent actions. Does that mean that the Liberal Party branches of Tasmania and Victoria should be dissolved? I think those opposite would say, 'That's a stretch.' But that is basically what this bill could apply to unions. If a company steals wages from employees or has a history of unfair dismissals or poor safety records, should they then not be able to merge because the coalition government says so? No. No-one on this side condones anyone in any sector of society breaching any law and they should be dealt with accordingly, as happens now. There have been a number of examples of that.

I also want to point out that the member for Sturt in his second reading of the bill proclaimed that unions and employer associations have a privileged position in the workplace relations system and the economy more broadly. I reject this statement. Unions and employer associations have a right to exist that is enshrined in international law and that is one of the pillars of the society of this country as it exists today. But this government is hell-bent on eroding this right in this place, day after day. It is day after day because this government feels the need to distract from its own dysfunction by attacking unions and thus attacking workers and everyday Australians.

This bill will do nothing but divide our society by skewing the balance of power in our labour market to favour big business. It is ideologically driven and will drive class warfare at a time of low wage growth and the cuts to penalty rates that the government support. There has been plenty of opportunity not to support it, but they are quite happy to cut the take-home pay of hundreds of thousands of Australian workers. There is increasing noncompliance by employers and companies. You just have to go and talk to a bunch of workers anywhere in this country to find that out, and it is growing and growing.

I want to make the point that the member for Whitlam made: companies across Australia are allowed under this government, who seem to like to turn a blind eye, to replace permanent workers with labour hire and contract labour. This is destabilising our society. These workers who are being hired by labour hire companies do not have the conditions that those of us who are in permanent employment enjoy. They cannot get a loan. They do not get sick pay. They do not get any annual leave. They do not get the things for which Australians have fought for decades. People such as my father fought to get better working conditions and better pay, and this government thinks it's okay to have a Labor market that is full of casualised work and insecure, unstable work. Communities, particularly in regional Australia, will have to face the impacts of what that actually means. This government is sitting by idly and watching it happen before its eyes, and it is happening more and more with every day that passes.

What we're also seeing is that companies are reducing the ability of workers to associate and organise. This government wants to make sure that unions don't exist. I'm sure that that is what it is planning to do if it is in government in this place for any longer than it has to be. Our union movement, our labour movement, has been an integral part of Australian society. This is what this country is built on. It is built on the fight that our forebears had fought for many decades, and this government wants to make sure that everything those people fought for is lost, gone forever, and that we can never, ever get it back. It's just that this government doesn't love our country in a way that ensures all Australians can have a fair go. This bill is an attack on the fair go. It is nothing short of that. It is nothing short of ensuring that workers in this country continue to get screwed over by companies that put profit before people. But, more than that, this government is never, ever going to stop while it is in a state of dysfunction. The thing that surprises me most about this government is it is prepared to breach international law. This will be a shameful day for this country if this bill passes. I implore those in the Senate to make sure it doesn't, because we cannot have a country that does not allow for the free rights of people to organise and be part of associations. We need to make sure that the relationship between employer and employee is a balanced relationship not one that is skewed in favour of big business and big profit.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor will always consider legislation on its merits, and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 has none. It is simply the latest salvo in the Liberals' long-running war on unions, and it exposes a rotten core of hypocrisy that lies at the heart of this wretched, hollow government. If only this government tackled corporate malfeasance with the same ardour that it reserves for unions—dodgy finance planners who rip off retirees, dodgy employers who make workers return half their wages, crooks who don't pay their workers superannuation, dodgy banks that ruin small-business people and lives. No, this bill doesn't tackle any of that, because they are the big Liberal donors, the untouchables. This government and this Prime Minister, an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, would rather run a mile than take on their friends in big finance. This bill instead targets unions: democratic organisations formed by workers to pursue fairness in the workplace, organisations that campaign for better pay, for safer workplaces, for workplaces that do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, religion or sexuality. This bill targets organisations that give workers a voice in the way that workplaces function.

This bill doesn't stop dodgy corporate directors from staying in business, but it does restrict the ability of union members to choose their elected union representatives. This bill doesn't give the Federal Court the power to wind up a corrupt business, but it does hand judges the power to shut down a democratically organised union. This bill doesn't demand that a corporate amalgamation be in the public interest, but it does demand it of unions. Hypocrisy and the Liberals' deep-seated ideological hatred of unions lie at the heart of this bill. In recent months this government has exposed its inability to function in the 21st century. It's failing to back the science that proves the reality of climate change. It's failing to support the principle that every Australian deserves equality under Australian law. It's failing to roll out the best technology that money can buy for Australia's broadband. With this bill, it is failing to support Australian workers and their right to organise for better pay and fairer workplaces.

The Liberals have never liked unions, but the rabid hatred is somewhat new. The founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, even represented the Waterside Workers Federation as a barrister. He'd be run out of the party these days. As Paul Keating remarked in 2007, there was no repugnancy of trade unionism for Menzies. But the Liberal Party in 2017 does not just hate trade unions, it fears them; and it is most afraid of unions that are the most effective at securing fair pay and safer worksites for their members. The CFMEU and MUA are tough unions with tough members who work in tough industries with tough employers. The industries that these unions' members work in are hazardous places where poor safety can lead to serious injury and death. Before unions organised, mining, construction, forestry, energy and seafaring were death trap industries. Workers died by the score, year after year, until workers said, 'Enough!' They organised themselves into unions to demand better pay and better safety.

But unionisation never came easy. Much blood has been spilled in the past 200 years, the vast majority of it belonging to workers and their families—murdered by corporations and their militias in a relentless attempt to prevent workers standing together. In the United States, between 1850 and 1959 more than 1,000 workers and their families were killed by authorities at various events including strikes and rallies. From 1877 to 1915 another 25 union men were hanged, only to be either posthumously declared innocent or to have the cases against them exposed as shams and political circuses. One of the most egregious injustices was against the Molly Maguires, the striking coalminers of Pennsylvania, in 1877 to 1879. The mine corporation they were striking against initiated an investigation using a private detective agency that it employed. A private police force arrested 20 men, and private attorneys—not state prosecutors—prosecuted the men, who were then hanged. One hundred years later in Pennsylvania the governor said, 'It is impossible for us to imagine the plight of the 19th century miners in Pennsylvania's anthracite region. We can be proud of the men known as the Molly Maguires—those martyred men of labour.'

This is not all ancient history. Similar struggles are being waged right now, this very day, across developing nations, and for the same reasons: workers simply demanding safer workplaces and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Those of us on this side of the House know that this is a never-ending struggle: that whenever we relax our guard, the corporations and their lickspittles in this House will be there to put profit before safety. The Prime Minister and the right-wing rump that runs the modern Liberals are focused on destroying Australian unions at a time when Australia has a wage crisis, record low levels of wages as a share of the economy, rising inequality, stubbornly high unemployment and more than 1.1 million Australians who desperately want more work but can't get it. Industrial disputation in Australia is at record lows and unions have been working as hard as anyone to be constructive in the face of pressures from automation and globalisation.

The fact is that when unions are weakened, safety suffers. When unions are locked out, workers suffer lower wages and poorer conditions. Workers across these industries—across all industries, but these hazardous industries in particular—need strong, robust unions that stand up to bullies in government and corporations. According to the International Labour Organization there were more than 2.3 million deaths worldwide last year as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. To put that number in perspective, across the world 167,000 people died in armed conflict in 2015—2.3 million people die at work from accidents or diseases arising from their employment compared to a fraction of that in armed conflict. It beggars belief. This is why unions exist: to bring those horrendous rates down.

Unfortunately, rather than working cooperatively with unions to achieve shared outcomes that are in the best interests of both workers and shareholders, as similar industries do across Europe, employers here have in the main adopted the American adversarial system: treat unions as an enemy to be defeated, because every extra dollar in a worker's pocket is a dollar less for a shareholder and every new safety regulation pushed by a union comes off the balance sheet. Little wonder then that a delegation of 30 mining, oil and gas barons made their way to Canberra in August to have a quiet chat with their trained poodles in the ministerial wing, demanding that the government stop a proposed amalgamation of the CFMEU and MUA into a national construction maritime union. No matter that the proposed amalgamation is lawful; no matter that the members of these democratic organisations have voted to pursue it.

This government will go to any lengths to stop workers advocating on their own behalf, and we see that in the creation of this bill. This government is so scared of workers standing together that it is actually legislating to keep them apart. Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, says this bill is antidemocratic and means that it will be big business deciding who can represent workers and not workers themselves. She says the only people who should be deciding whether there is a merger between two unions is the members of those unions—not the boss nor the representatives in the Liberal Party, but the workers. When people lose the right to choose who runs their union, we are living in an authoritarian state.

Those opposite claim this bill puts unions on the same footing as corporations. It simply doesn't; it goes much further. If this bill passes, unions and union officials will be subject to requirements that do not apply to corporations and directors. While persons can be disqualified from being a company director following conviction for various Corporations Act and Crimes Act offences, there is no equivalent to the 'fit and proper person' test. The fit and proper person test in this bill is a list of unacceptable behaviours including fraud, violence and any other event the court considers relevant, which do not have to have been committed in the course of or in relation to the person's duties and obligations as an officer. There is no general public interest test for mergers of corporations and no express bar to corporate mergers based on previous wrongdoing.

The penalties in this bill exceed those for arguably equivalent offences in the Corporations Act. The proposed penalty for the offence of a disqualified person continuing to influence a registered organisation is double the penalty in the equivalent provision of the Corporations Act. This was recommended by the discredited Heydon royal commission, but there is no evidence for why it is necessary or justified. An application for the disqualification of an officer can be brought by the commissioner, the minister or a person with sufficient interest. There are no conditions or safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. There is no justification for the minister or those who claim a sufficient interest to have standing. It goes beyond the recommendations of even Heydon. Under these provisions, once a ground is made out for disqualification, the onus is on the officer to prove to the court why it would be unjust to make an order of disqualification. This bill reverses the onus. Under the Corporations Act, there is no such onus on the director. There is no maximum term of disqualification. It is open to the court to determine.

So, first, this bill goes much further and, second, corporations and unions are vastly different organisations with different objectives. Corporations exist to create a profit for shareholders—and good on them; that's what they exist for. They exist solely to further their own private interest. Unions exist to drive better pay and conditions for workers, both in terms of their direct membership and workers more generally. They exist solely to further shared interests. The expectations on the shoulders of a CEO are to create profit. The expectations on the shoulders of a union organiser or a union secretary are to deliver fair pay and conditions for members—something those on the other side should remember. The harder you push workers, the harder they push back. Unions know how to stand up and defend themselves from attack. It is what they have been doing for more than 200 years. And I should add that no-one on this side of the House has a problem with ensuring that unions act in the best interests of members and with the highest level of integrity. No movement is perfect—not unions, not the Labor Party, certainly not the Liberal Party, not the Catholic Church, not the Salvation Army. Anywhere we look, good movements can be let down by the poor and even criminal behaviour of individuals within them. Just recently—today, in fact—we have heard allegations of terrible things being said on a picket line that cannot and should not be defended. Importantly, allegations should be referred to the police so they can be dealt with appropriately rather than be misused for political purposes in this place.

Labor has no problem with rooting out the crooks in the union movement and letting them face the full wrath of the law. Michael Williamson and the Liberals' best friend Kathy Jackson are cases in point. If anything, we despise these people more than most because every dollar they pocket is a dollar taken from union members and their families—the people we on this side represent. People like Williamson and Jackson have been dealt with or are being dealt with under existing law—the bill before the House has little to do with ensuring better standards of integrity and much more to do with grinding down workers' ability to organise. For every union official caught with their hand in the jar there will be more CEOs doing much worse—Domino's, 7-Eleven, ANU, Caltex, George Calombaris and McDonald's all underpaying staff wages or super. There are no demands from those opposite to clean up corporate culture; there is no outrage about workers' wages and superannuation being ripped off. This government is so incompetent that it can't even manage its own attacks without fumbling. I refer to Nigel Hadgkiss, who had to resign in disgrace. This bill does not deserve to pass this House. It is an egregious attack on workers and unions and should not pass.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is well-known that the binding purpose of the Liberal Party, the coalition and its forebear parties has been to oppose the Labor Party and the labour movement. True to form, this bill isn't about improving the functions of unions, it isn't about helping workers and it isn't about good and proper regulation—it is about undermining industrial organisations and the Labor Party. Trade unions have been a central feature of Australia's industrial, social and political framework since Federation and they remain so today. At a time when wage growth is at record lows, workers are facing penalty rate cuts and high levels of underemployment. This government seems hell-bent on destroying the organisations that work to support those workers. This bill is about politics and not policy. The Prime Minister and his government are set on destroying unions at a time when they are needed most. Perhaps the government should be focusing more energy on the issues that matter more to Australians, like dealing with the wage increase crisis, with record low wages as a share of GDP, rising inequality, stubbornly high unemployment and high rates of underemployment, casualisation and uberfication of the workforce.

This piece of legislation even defies international law. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights considered the bill. Half of the committee membership is from the government, but it noted that the measures proposed by the bill will impact on a number of recognised human rights, including the right to freedom of association and the right to just and favourable working conditions. Members of the committee pointed out that those rights are informed by various International Labour Organization treaties to which Australia is a party. They include the right of workers to autonomous union processes without interference, organising their administration and activities without interference and formulating their own programs without interference. Various ILO treaties also protect industrial organisations from being dissolved, suspended or deregistered and protect the rights of workers to form organisations of their own choosing. Indeed, Australia has for many decades condemned other governments in other countries from doing just these sorts of things. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights noted that various measures contained in the bill would limit the ability of unions to govern their internal processes and therefore limit those rights. It queried whether the legislation pursues a legitimate objective.

Once again, through this legislation, we are seeing the incompetence of this government to properly legislate. We have seen it with the BEAR scheme, which everyone agreed was a good idea but then it fell flat when the government put forward proposals to industry without any adequate consultation at all. We saw it when it came to crowd-sourced funding for start-ups, when the government, having consulted, failed to pay any attention to what industry asked for and pushed through legislation despite being told there were problems with it, and now we come back for this session and they are bringing forward new legislation to fix up the problem they created in the first place, after they finally listened. Of course, then it comes to superannuation. The government has jumped all over the place, criticised from all quarters because of its changes and flip-flops in superannuation. Most recently, it came forward with further proposed reforms to governance—changes for which the minister was literally laughed at by the industry.

This bill has nothing to do with sound public policy and everything to do with the government's anti-union, anti-worker agenda. The government keeps talking about corporate regulation for the industrial area. But that's not what this is. This is a gross political overreach. The government claims that this legislation will align the obligations placed on unions with those already imposed on corporations. However, this assumes that unions and corporations are the same and that industrial organisations don't already face sufficient levels of regulation. Indeed, under the proposed legislation, low-paid workers who are members of a union could have the registration of their union cancelled or have their rights to take protected industrial action suspended based on the conduct of their democratically elected officials—that conduct occurring without their knowledge—which would then leave those workers unprotected. Compare that with the executives of some well-known corporations, like banks, and you'll see that the obligations the government wants to impose on unions are far greater than they ever imposed on corporations. Clearly, the government's approach is not based on need.

The government claims that the bill will put corporations and unions on even footing. However, this notion is based on the false premise that they are the same. The bill will impose an obligation on registered organisations and offices that actually exceed those that would be placed on a company and its directors. The Corporations Act contains a number of provisions that provide for the disqualification of directors, including an automatic disqualification for criminal conduct, disqualification by a court and disqualification by the regulator, ASIC, in limited circumstances. However, none of these processes allow a minister or a shareholder or another stakeholder to take action to disqualify a director.

In contrast, the regime that is proposed in schedule 1 of this bill will enable not only the Registered Organisations Commissioner but the minister or a person with sufficient standing to seek a court order to disqualify a person from being an official of a registered organisation. Indeed, if we turn to the term 'having sufficient interest' we see that it has been interpreted as an interest beyond that of any ordinary person and includes those whose rights, interests or legitimate expectations would be affected by the decision. This brings in a large group of people who apparently should have standing to bring claims for disqualification of the people running a registered organisation when a similar group would never have standing to be able to seek disqualification of a director of a corporation. The government talks about equal footing, but it is clearly going much further in this legislation. Instead, this is a blatant demonstration of how the government wants to damage the union movement and leave Australian workers unrepresented and unprotected.

The effect of the amendments in schedule 2 is that the federal court can cancel the registration of an organisation when certain grounds are established. Those grounds have been greatly expanded. In addition, the regime for cancellation of registration is far more expansive because it allows for—instead of looking at what the Corporations Act does, which was provide standing to a specific limited group, being shareholders, liquidators, creditors and ASIC, to seek that a company be liquidated, each having a very clear connection to the ownership, administration or regulation of a company, for unions it's proposed that merely a person with sufficient interest will have standing to bring an action. For a union this could include another registered organisation or an employer group. It could be an employer themselves. It could be an employer party to an enterprise agreement being negotiated with that registered organisation. Or it could be the minister. It may even be a state government. The amendments regarding cancellation of registration, interestingly, were not recommended by the Heydon royal commission. There is no policy explanation as to why they are appropriate or any evidence as to why they are good policy.

The bill also significantly expands the existing regime for the administration of what are called dysfunctional organisations. The government claims that this provision of the legislation was modelled on similar provisions in the Corporations Act. Again, if you look closely, you will find that is not the case. They are far more intrusive. Under the Corporations Act, neither ASIC, the minister nor shareholders generally have standing to initiate proceedings to place a company into voluntary administration; only a board of directors can do that. In contrast, the regime proposed by schedule 3 of the bill will enable not only the organisation itself but also the commissioner, the minister, a member of the organisation or any other person having what is called a 'sufficient interest' to seek a court order to place the organisation into administration. It would appear to allow members of a party that are affected by the actions being taken by the organisation to apply for orders to disqualify an official, to seek to have the body deregistered or to have an administrator appointed to it, which are completely antithetical to the proper negotiation and administration of the rights between workers and employers. It gives an ancillary mode of attack to attack the organisation that is there to protect the interests of those workers.

Then we have the public interest test for amalgamations. The Heydon report made no recommendation to amend the legislation in relation to the amalgamation of organisations. Corporations may merge if it is agreed by their members. The current provisions of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act provide a simple procedural process for amalgamations to give effect to the wishes of the respective organisation's members as conducted through a democratic ballot by the Australian Electoral Commission. This is in fact more onerous and has a higher level of integrity than those merger ballots undertaken in the case of shareholdings for a company. This is appropriate, and it should remain so.

Unions may wish to amalgamate for a number of reasons, including to reduce overheads, increase efficiencies and better serve the interests of the workers that they represent as their members. However, the provisions of this bill relating to amalgamations are blatantly aimed at the proposed amalgamation between the CFMEU, the MUA and the TCFUA by imposing this new public interest test, which has apparently come out of nowhere. There is no reason for it, there is no policy justification for it, and it is quite clearly aimed at a particular potential merger of unions. Why legislate for a particular group of unions at all? The Prime Minister wants to deny those union members the right to determine their own representation, to determine their own structure and to determine how they come together, because the concept of solidarity and workers coming together to protect their own interests seems to be an anathema to those on the other side.

The bill requires the full bench of the Fair Work Commission to determine whether a proposed amalgamation of two or more unions is in the public interest before approving the amalgamation. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights noted that the proposed public interest test engages and limits the right to freedoms of association and particularly the right to form associations of one's own choosing—something you would think that a Liberal Party would be all about. The current amalgamation regime is consistent with the emphasis in international law on the self-determination of industrial organisations, and that is reflected in the current legislation.

The amendments in schedule 4 are an outrageous interference with the internal affairs of industrial organisations. It would be amazing if we were to propose that similar steps be taken in corporate Australia. Indeed, the only place in which we can see anything getting close to this in corporate Australia is when we look at the reviews conducted by FIRB: they are only reviews and they are for the very essential purpose of protecting the national interest in foreign transactions—something that is miles away from what we are talking about here.

The government's intention through this bill is clear. It is an attack on the union movement. It is an attack on working Australians. It is an attempt to reduce their bargaining power. It is the government trying to protect the vested interests of its mates and not thinking about what is in the national interest. In fact, what we need is the opposite. This legislation is the next in a long line of legislative attacks from the early 20th century through to the creation of the ABCC, WorkChoices and beyond. The government says that this is a pro-worker regime, that it is there to protect the rights of workers. We all know that it is not. The bill goes far beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission and beyond anything that the government had previously announced as election policy. It has absolutely no mandate to pursue this path. For that reason, and for all the other reasons, this bill cannot be supported. It is quite clear from this legislation that only Labor really stands for ensuring that we have well-functioning and effective union representation for ordinary Australian workers. Again, it is clear that only the Labor Party will stand up for Australian workers.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Burt for his contribution on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. One of the many fallacies that are perpetrated on this House by the other side is the fact that on this side of the House we are all ex union representatives. And, of course, at the moment we have two current lawyers speaking about this very important legislation, how it is bad law and why it should not be passed. I'm very pleased to speak on this bill so that I can make the point that it is purely about politics; it's not about policy. But that is not of itself surprising, given that this government has form in preferring the interests of the big end of town over those of ordinary Australians, just as it prefers tax cuts to properly funding health and education and supporting lower-paid workers.

Labor will not be supporting this bill. The bill is nothing but a political attack on unions, which the government sees as its political enemy, despite the fact that we've seen the Treasurer call for wages growth to help drive growth in the economy. Only a distorted and misguided political agenda will fail to see that a functional, effective union movement is important—yes, important—to the protection of the interests of lower-paid workers and the economy as a whole. This bill is another plank in the government's anti-union and anti-worker agenda, building on the attack against the union movement represented by the Heydon royal commission.

The government claims that this bill will put corporations and unions on an even footing. First, this notion is based upon a false premise that corporations and unions are the same and should be treated accordingly. Second, it is completely inaccurate—a misrepresentation. This bill imposes obligations on registered organisations and officers of registered organisations that are significantly in excess of those imposed on corporations and company directors. In reality, the government's intention throughout this bill is to attack the union movement and to take workers away from the bargaining table. This bill goes beyond the Heydon recommendations and beyond the government's election announcements. The government has no mandate for these changes or for its attack on unions and union members.

This legislation is based upon politics and ideology. It is focused on destroying unions at a time when we have a wages crisis—record low levels of wages as a share of GDP—and rising inequality, stubbornly high unemployment and over 1.1 million underemployed Australians. The government pursues this attack because it can, not because it is right and not because it's proper. The government ignores any sense of proportionality and attention to process and good governance, even by reference to corporations that purport to form the justification for this legislation. Specifically, this bill amends the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009—the RO Act—to introduce, firstly, a fit and proper person test for holding office of a registered organisation, an RO, and mechanisms for disqualification from office; new grounds for deregistration of an RO; a mechanism for placing an RO into administration; a new test and procedural requirement for amalgamation of ROs; and minor and technical amendments.

Each of these provisions is fundamentally flawed, which demonstrates this government's shallow and base political agenda against the union movement. In its desperation to introduce this bill, the government has failed to consult, and the result of that failure is an ill-considered piece of legislation—legislation that Labor opposes and legislation that absolutely deserves to be rejected. Schedule 1, for example, allows for an application for the disqualification of an officer to be brought by the commissioner, the minister or a person with sufficient interest.

There are no conditions or safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. I have heard the member for Burt's contributions with respect to the issue of standing. Those contributions are most important. A competent government would not leave the issue of standing at large except, of course, if the object of this legislation was to permit each and every frivolous, vexatious and untested claim against a union to be stand to expose the respondent to unnecessary cost and inconvenience, and expose the public purse to unnecessary cost. In other words, this government is prepared to swamp the Federal Court with unnecessary, vexatious and frivolous claims upon any complaint about the deregistration of a registered organisation.

There is no justification for the minister or for those who claim a sufficient interest to have standing. It goes beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission. It goes beyond what is reasonably necessary to protect the interests of the public and, again, exposes the government's political agenda. This unfair agenda is also emphasised by the fact that unlike a director subject to a disqualification application, a union official subject to the equivalent application bears the onus of satisfying the court that it would be unjust to make an order of disqualification. I'll say that again: if an application is made to the court for an order for disqualification of a registered organisation's officer, the onus is reversed. The officer needs to establish that it is unjust for that order to be made. No such impediment faces a director who has the benefit of the ordinary onus resting upon the applicant rather than the respondent. In other words, an application made by ASIC or by any other interested party—and a party entitled to make an application to the court for an order of disqualification—simply needs to satisfy the court that it's appropriate for the order to be made. It's not the case that the director needs to satisfy the court that it shouldn't be made.

Similarly, the regime for the cancellation of the registration of an organisation contained in schedule 2 of the bill is far more expansive than the regime for the winding up of companies in the Corporations Act. There is no equivalent provision in the Corporations Act that specifically and directly allows for companies to be wound up due to a history of noncompliance with the law from members, be they directors or shareholders in the case of companies. A company can repeatedly put workers' lives at risk or refuse to pay employees proper wages or entitlements and not be wound up, whereas a union could have its registration cancelled if a group of members takes unprotected industrial action.

These examples are particularly relevant to the question at issue in this legislation, particularly where the government claims equivalence—that is, a false equivalence—between corporations and unions. It is possible that in response to a company's unlawful conduct in connection with a union member's wages or conditions—in this case, clearly unlawful conduct of the most serious type where it relates to unsafe working conditions, exposing workers to the possibility of death or serious injury—a union would be subject to sanctions far exceeding those applicable to the offending corporation. Again, in circumstances where there's an unsafe workplace, a union may be properly required to bring that to the attention of the public. It may be properly required to bring that to the wider attention of the media. If this is unprotected action, the union may be subject to a striking off or a disqualification application, whereas the company that exposes its workers to death or serious injury will bear no such sanction.

This really underlies the unfair political agenda that underpins this legislation. Where is the concern for workers exposed to unsafe working conditions that might amount to breaches of a director's obligation to ensure a safe workplace? Where is the concern about the conduct of corporations and directors amounting to wage theft or the phoenixing of companies? There is an inherent unfairness in this bill trying to put corporations and unions on an even footing, where in practice they are two entirely different entities as matters of principle.

Schedule 3 of the bill significantly expands the existing regime for administration of 'dysfunctional organisations', as it describes them. It introduces mechanisms for placing unions into administration because of certain actions taken by two or more officials. Imagine placing the Commonwealth Bank of Australia into administration on the basis that Commonwealth Bank directors and executives failed to take steps to prevent breaches of anti-money-laundering legislation. The true position is that this legislation is an attack on unions and union members. Journalists who are members of the MEAA could lose their union protection, without any default on their behalf, due to the actions of two or more officials of that union. Similarly nurses, low-paid cleaners or firefighters could lose the protection they are entitled to, because their democratically elected union officials have acted without their knowledge.

What happens to the company shareholder where two or more directors have acted without their knowledge? There should be no suggestion that the CBA, ANZ or, for that matter, any public company should be wound up in response to merely unlawful conduct, even when that conduct is repeated. The answer is to enforce existing legislation and to ensure the penalties are proportionate to the offence or offences. The suspension of an organisation's rights is the suspension of the rights of its members. The free and democratic functioning of unions and employer organisations without regulatory, political or industry interference is recognised in international law. This bill fundamentally contravenes the ILO core convention 87: Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948.

Schedule 4 of the bill is of particular concern. It is blatantly aimed at the proposed amalgamation between the CFMEU, the MUA and the TCFUA. The current provisions of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 provide a simple procedural process for amalgamations to give effect to the wishes of respective organisations' members as expressed in a ballot conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission. It is entirely appropriate as a matter of law and, I must say, as a matter of principle. This government dishonestly claims that the competition test applied to companies seeking to merge is like a public interest test, similar to the public interest test that this bill imposes on organisations seeking to amalgamate. However, the competition test imposed upon company mergers takes into account only whether the effect of the merger would have the effect of substantially lessening competition in any market. The public interest test that this bill imposes on organisations takes into account the organisations' record of complying with the law, as well as the impact on employers and employees in the industry or industries concerned. A corporation can have an extensive record of not complying with the law, including wages theft or a poor safety and OH&S record, and will not be prevented from merging. This is a double standard which, again, confirms the government's flawed political agenda.

Let me be clear: Labor will not stand for corruption or for dishonest behaviour. We do not oppose the taking of measures to ensure that unions and officials act properly and in the best interests of their members. It is to the provisions of this bill as a mechanism for achieving that end that we look, and it is flawed. It has been made clear that we would support legislation that is properly drafted and appropriately applies to both companies and registered organisations equally. However, this bill is not well drafted. There has been no genuine consultation. The legislation is purely an attempt to attack and undermine the union movement. As I said earlier, this is at a time when we have record low wages growth and we have some within our economy, such as the Governor of the Reserve Bank, exhorting the union movement to press for increased wages. We have this government attacking the union movement, because it's on a political crusade.

Labor opposes this bill and the attempts of this government to undermine the right of all working Australians to representation in the workplace. There is no evil in the union movement; in fact, there is much good in the union movement. Nothing that this government has put up in the arguments put before this place suggests this legislation is appropriate or proportionate. It does not deserve the support of this House, and I would urge that this piece of legislation be opposed, if it please.

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

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. Up-front, I declare that I'm a proud member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, and I have received the support of many unions and their members over the last decade or so as a member of this parliament, including the CFMEU; United Voice; my old union, the Independent Education Union; the QNMU; the Queensland Teachers' Union; the CPSU and the mighty Meat Industry Employees Union, to name but a few. I'm proud to be connected with the men and women of the union movement.

This bill is yet another attack by the Turnbull government on hardworking Australians. It is a further attempt to shackle the union movement and prevent workers from taking their rightful place at the bargaining table, where employees and employers work out their working conditions together. This Turnbull government has been relentless in its attacks on unions. Those opposite fundamentally do not understand the role of unions in Australian society. I feel it necessary to remind the chamber of how different the working lives of Australians would be but for the advocacy of the union movement over the last two centuries, both here and abroad. Urban Australian workers in the early 19th century were working very long hours for very low pay. The first organised unions were formed to address that unfairness. Midway through the 19th century, stonemasons won the right to an eight-hour week, when their society forced the issue by giving an ultimatum to employers. It was not until 1920 that all Australian workers enjoyed that right of an eight-hour day.

Queensland especially has a proud history of unions fighting for workers' rights. The 1894 shearers' strike, though unsuccessful, was a turning point for the union movement in Queensland and saw the formation of the labour movement's political wing, the great Australian Labor Party. The strike, in response to the Pastoral Employers' Association agreeing to lower the wages of shearers, extend their working hours and retain the right to withhold their wages until the end of the shearing season, culminated in the conservative colonial government sending in more than 1,000 armed soldiers and special constables. After some of the strike leaders were arrested and sent to St Helena Island, and with the real threat of bloodshed, the unions called an end to the strike.

But this was the turning point for unions and the working class—the point at which they realised they needed a voice, they needed to have the working man's voice and later the working woman's voice heard in politics, so that Australian laws reflected not only the pastoralists' interests but the interests of every Australian. Just five years later Queensland had the world's first Labor government. Sadly, Anderson Dawson's government only lasted six days, from 1 December 1899, while the Tories sorted out their infighting. But it was a great start, and the labour movement has come a long way since then.

Unions are still vitally important for Australian workers. Even workers who are not members of a union benefit from the conditions fought for by union members. Unions are responsible for the precious working entitlements that we all take for granted, such as annual leave, sick pay, workers' compensation and health and safety standards, to name a few. Unions represent over a million workers in Australia but benefit millions more. Unions are just as important today in advocating for the rights of workers as they were in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The job of unions is never complete. Sadly, there will always be unscrupulous employers who will exploit their workers. Sadly, they can sometimes create a race to the bottom: the rogue outliers, the bad bosses, can create an uneven playing surface for their good boss competitors. We don't need to look too far to see modern examples of exploitation by well-known and respected companies. For example, Myer, where cleaners were paid well below award wages, denied penalty rates and superannuation and put in circumstances where they had no occupational health and safety protections. There was the case of 7-Eleven, where a Four Corners investigation showed evidence of gross underpayment, doctoring of pay records and threats of deportation. There was Pizza Hut, where delivery drivers were paid as little as $6 an hour. These are modern horror stories in the digital age. You don't have to look into too many dark corners to see modern slavery-type abuses and worse. Sadly, examples like these of exploitation of workers are not mentioned by those opposite. Unions have an important and continuing role to ensure that Australians can go to work in workplaces that are safe, that they can earn an honest day's wage and safely return home to their families and loved ones. In this economic climate the protection that unions provide to workers is even more important.

Australian workers are doing it particularly tough under this out-of-touch Turnbull government. Their wages are stagnant. Wages are at record low levels in terms of the share of GDP. Inequality is rising. Unemployment is still high and over 1.1 million Australians are underemployed. And then, to Prime Minister Turnbull's eternal shame, on his watch some of our lowest paid workers have had their take-home pay slashed through cuts in penalty rates. All of these factors combine to put Australian workers in a weakened bargaining position with their employers. It is particularly at times like this that union advocacy is vital to ensure that workers do not get exploited, that workers receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, that workers get the entitlements they deserve and that inequality is not being driven up by economic conditions and opportunistic employers or, worse, immoral employers, as we've heard with the phoenix company type activities—not illegal, but certainly immoral. Sadly, we also need to be aware of the criminal behaviour of some employers.

Labor has always said that it will not stand for wrongdoing or corruption in unions. We heard the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, say that again today after question time. He's said it many times. Where there is wrongdoing, it should be investigated and punished. I stand by this and personally repeat that position, particularly if a union official is exploiting their vulnerable members. Nothing makes a union supporter's blood boil more than seeing some low-paid employees being ripped off by somebody.

The Heydon royal commission into trade unions resulted in a single Queensland referral of a union official. That 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. But we should also note that in Queensland the Heydon royal commission actually recommended more charges be laid against building industry executives than against anyone else. Yet bad bosses don't attract the ire of 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' and his caucus cronies. To put the number of referrals from the trade union royal commission into perspective, there are a total of 93 referrals across Australia relating to 45 persons or entities. Let's contrast that with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a royal commission called for by Prime Minister Gillard, which made 2,393 referrals to authorities. Now, that's a royal commission that we absolutely needed to have, and I'm very proud that it was a Labor government that made it happen.

Labor will always support legislation on its merits, but this bill has absolutely no merit at all. This is simply power politics. It is devoid of anything even resembling policy. This is a desperate government pursuing its ideological obsession with destroying unions, as the pressing weight of 21 bad Newspolls in a row signals the imminent end of Mr Turnbull's time at the Lodge. This is according to his own published criteria. This bill actually breaches international law. It contravenes International Labour Organization core convention 87 on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise, 1948.

Under the provisions of this proposed bill, registered organisations and officers will be faced with obligations far in excess of those faced by corporations and company directors. The measures in the bill exceed any recommendations of the Heydon royal commission. From a legal perspective, there are extremely concerning provisions in this bill. For example, an application for disqualification of an officer can be brought by anyone with sufficient interest. There is no other requirement for standing necessary. Once a ground for disqualification has been made out, the onus is on the officer to prove that it would be unjust to make the order for disqualification. There is no maximum term of disqualification; it is open to the court to impose any term.

The provisions of this bill impose much more onerous conditions on registered organisations than the comparable provisions of the Corporations Act impose on companies and their directors. For example, if a disqualified person continues to influence a registered organisation, the penalty is double the penalty of the equivalent provision in the Corporations Act. The regime for cancelling the registration of an organisation is far more expansive than the regime for winding up a company. The Corporations Act has no equivalent provision to allow for companies to be wound up due to a history of non-compliance with the law by its directors or shareholders.

The inequality that this bill would impose on registered organisations compared to the treatment of corporations under the Corporations Act is no more obvious than in the provision in this bill that would allow a union to have its registration cancelled if a group of members took unprotected industrial action, especially if something like a workplace death occurred and people were outraged. Contrast that to a corporation that can repeatedly treat their workers appallingly by non-payment of wages or entitlements, and even put lives at risk, but cannot be wound up for that behaviour. There is already a simple procedure for the amalgamation of registered organisations under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act. It requires a ballot of members and is conducted under the fair watch of the Australian Electoral Commission.

This bill proposes to amend these already appropriate provisions in relation to amalgamations. It is obvious that this is a direct attack on the proposed amalgamation of the CFMEU, the MUA and the TCFUA—the sailors and the textile and clothing workers. This proposed provision ignores the fact there are often great benefits to members for their union to amalgamate with another union. Amalgamations can reduce rent and utility payments, increase administrative efficiencies or better represent the interests of the union-member workers. This bill imposes unfair and onerous requirements on registered organisations who want to merge. It requires a public interest test that will take into account the organisation's record of complying with the law and the impact on employers and employees in the industry. These provisions are in sharp contrast to those for companies, which can merge with just one test imposed on them: that the effect will not substantially lessen competition in any market.

Labor supports tough penalties for those who break the law. Labor's 2012 amendments tripled the penalties for breaches of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act, as well as requiring education and training to be provided to officials of registered organisations about their governance and accounting obligations. We also required the disclosure of officials' remuneration and pecuniary and financial interests. We also enhanced the investigative powers available to Fair Work Australia, including the power to provide information to agencies, such as the Federal Police or state police. All that happened under a Labor government.

It is clear what this government's priorities are. They are not to support Australian workers or to support the importance of the unions who represent them. What this government is attempting to do with their legislative agenda is to destroy the ability of trade unions to organise and to bargain collectively. Even for this ideologically obsessed Turnbull government this bill is an overreach. It goes far beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission, and it goes beyond the government's own election announcements. I give a cautionary word to those opposite. I remember the 2004 election, when a bloke from my home town of St George got elected, a senator from Queensland called Barnaby Joyce. When he became a senator, that gave John Howard the numbers in the Senate to bring in Work Choices legislation. That was John Howard's Waterloo—or if you'd like another piece of military history, John Howard's 'bridge too far'. This piece of legislation will also spell the end for Mr Harbourside Mansion, as far as I can see. It goes way too far. It is extreme and dangerous. Prime Minister Turnbull has no mandate for this bill. He has only one agenda: to keep a hold on power. This will be his undoing. I do not support this legislation.

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

It seems as though in every sitting week this big-business government marches out some new policy that attacks workers and their unions. It's a weak move and it shows a blatant contempt for the pay and conditions of Australian workers. Economic inequality is on the rise. We know that. We know the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. A government that cared about its people would do something to address this. It would take steps to even out the playing field, but this government does not care about people. This legislation, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, is undeniably about politics. Nothing more. This is about politics. It's about removing power from the trade union movement and workers here in our country.

This has been the goal of the LNP for many, many years. They have sought to chip away at workers' rights whenever they can. Whether it's the malign Work Choices program, which Labor brought down 10 years ago next month, or the decision to strip away the penalty rates of hardworking Australians—700,000 Australians—which the government made in July, the actions of the Liberal and National parties show just how antiworker they are. Where their priorities lie is blatant, absolutely blatant. They've cut the take-home pay of workers and then given big business a tax cut—that's how blatant they are. They've cut millions and millions of dollars from vocational education and training at the same time as establishing the PaTH program, which encourages casualisation of an already vulnerable workforce. Now here they are once again, Mr Deputy Speaker—with the support, mind you, of Pauline Hanson and her band of anti-battler One Nation senators—proposing legislation that attacks the very movement that protects vulnerable workers and their pay and conditions.

It wasn't very long ago that the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, declared that Australia was in a wage crisis following the prolonged period of low wages growth that has plagued our country under this Prime Minister's leadership. Lowe's British counterpart, Andy Haldane of the Bank of England, made a similar observation but attributed this crisis to the 'divide and conquer' techniques that have been utilised to lessen the workers' bargaining power. Effectively, he recognised that the attacks on unions are the direct cause of a sharp decline in wages growth—or, as a Sydney Morning Herald headline said recently, 'Tough rules on unions have stifled Australians' wages'. This is so very true. It's true that the more this government attacks unions, the more it attacks the working people of this country.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you just have to look at the industrial dispute that the workers at CUB, Carlton & United Breweries, were forced to endure at the end of last year and into this year. They were a unionised workforce, members of the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union. They had their contracts terminated by CUB. Hardworking Australians getting their kids off to school, going to work, doing what they needed to do to raise their families had their contracts terminated so that they could be rehired under a labour-hire program with significantly lower pay and conditions. This government did absolutely nothing to support those mothers and fathers, who were absolutely shafted by this awful deal. Do you know what? Only their unions stood up for them. I didn't hear any member of the government—I didn't hear the Prime Minister—standing up for those workers. There was not one peep. It was their union that banded together with non-union people in grassroots community style support to hold CUB to account. And they were successful. Fifty-five workers whose contracts had been terminated were reinstated with full pay and conditions. Do you want to know what workers do for their members? That's what workers do for their members, Mr Deputy Speaker. That was a clear example of how the union movement directly protects the wages and conditions of working people.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, we have Malcolm Turnbull and his government's attack, which is directly hurting the wages and conditions of working people and having a negative effect on our economy. Yet the government keep blindly flailing in the direction of the unions, not caring what they take down with them—not caring that they take down the wages of hardworking Australians, not caring that they take down the employment conditions that people work under, not caring that they take down the economic stability of this country. The government are willing to take down the economic backbone of this country, the working class. And for what? It's all for a poorly calculated political witch-hunt. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to gain from these measures except to further increase the already ballooning profits of big business and send millions and millions of dollars offshore.

This government, though—let's be very clear here—are also leading the way in demonstrating how to be poor employers as well. They are meant to be prime examples of how to be good employers but time and time again they have proven to be just the opposite. Just recently it was announced that, instead of employing local people in local jobs, they are contracting out Centrelink call centre work. They are contracting it out. They are cutting jobs of Australian workers and sending them overseas. This is sensitive, personal work that would benefit Australian call centre operators but, as everyone knows, this is a government that thinks about short-term monetary gains without ever thinking of the consequences. There are people in communities, including my community, who need work, are ready to work, getting up every day looking for work, going to their jobactive providers, knocking on doors and sending resumes; they are looking for work and here they have a government that is selling jobs offshore. Absolutely disgraceful.

Australia's anti-union laws have already gone too far—and this is not just a personal opinion. Australia's current laws on industrial action sit well below recognised international norms. The United Nations declares strike action to be a right and has done so since the early days following World War II. The restrictions imposed on Australians then put our country at odds with international standards. Yet this government wants to take things even further. Through this bill, the Prime Minister seeks to further breach international law just to satisfy his anti-worker agenda. That's right—to carry out his anti-worker attack, Prime Minister Turnbull is looking to contravene International Labour Organization core convention 87, the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention of 1948. To absolutely ignore international convention—to defy these laws that were negotiated with our friends and allies—to pursue a personal vendetta demonstrates absolute arrogance. It is complete arrogance not only to ignore our international allies but also to ignore the Australian people.

For 21 consecutive weeks Australian people have been telling the Prime Minister they are not happy. Surely he can't be oblivious to this. For 21 weeks that's what the Australian people have been telling this Prime Minister. They are sick of taxpayer-funded witch-hunts against unions, against working people. This will be this Prime Minister's downfall, let me tell you. The government tries to justify this legislation by claiming that it's based on recommendations from the Heydon royal commission, which, let's be very clear, was another failed LNP witch-hunt against unions that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars—another failed witch-hunt that cost lots of money that could have been spent elsewhere.

We all know the justification for this legislation is blatantly false, and any semblance of a mandate is absolutely non-existent. Heydon recommended that the RO commissioners be granted standing to make applications and submissions to the Federal Court. This bill seeks to allow any interested party—like big business, employer organisations, a disgruntled former member or competing members in internal elections; it could even mean a business in a supply chain that isn't even in the same industry—to make application. It's a measure that is absolutely ripe for exploitation and, do you know what? That's what this government is counting on. The more time that unions are fighting baseless attacks by an interested party, whoever it may be, the less time they can be fighting against this government's attacks on workers. If a union is exhausting all of its resources fighting some disgruntled interested party, whoever that may be, they'll have less resources to fight against this government when it seeks, for example, to cut the take-home pay of vulnerable workers.

I'd call it clever political manoeuvring, of course, if their intentions weren't so blatantly obvious and their goals so unfair and so short-sighted. But, as it stands, I'll call it out for what it is: it's an act of spiteful desperation from a weak government that hates being called out for its antiworker policies. Unions are already heavily regulated—more heavily regulated than corporations and charities. This of course is due to continuous attacks from the Right. The government's claim that the provisions of this bill are equivalent to laws governing corporations is just another falsehood. For example, while a person can be disqualified from their role as a company director following a conviction for Corporations Act or Crimes Act offences, there is no equivalent to the fit and proper test that this bill seeks to introduce. So, the question really is: why are unions going to be held to a separate set of rules? Why?

Similarly, there is no public interest test for mergers of corporations. Let's be very clear about what this test is. It's been conjured up solely to make it more difficult for unions to collectively bargain. I'm a really proud trade unionist. I worked with United Voice for many, many years before coming into this House, and I stand really proud as a trade unionist. I fought for some of society's most vulnerable workers in this country. I know just how important unions are. I've stood up beside early childhood educators, beside brewery workers, beside security guards and cleaners, beside teacher aides and beside paramedics. I've stood beside a lot of those workers and stood up for their right to collectively bargain. It's with that experience of being somebody who stands up for the rights of people, the rights of workers—somebody who is proud to be a trade unionist and will be until the day I die—that I absolutely, wholeheartedly reject this blatant and callous attack on workers and this government's absolutely pathetic attempt to malign the trade union movement under this piece of legislation. Thank you.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this legislation, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. It was American novelist Norman Mailer who said:

Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.

That's exactly what sits at the heart of this legislation—the coalition's obsession with undermining trade unions at any cost, a distraction for a government that has lost its way, a government obsessed with obliterating collective bargaining, with eroding human dignity and hurting working families by subjecting workplaces to the law of the jungle.

This bill is presented in the guise of improving productivity and cracking down on illegality. But the bottom line, now and throughout Australia's history, is that the conservative forces just don't like unions. They just don't respect the fact that working people, due to the nature of the workplace and the power imbalance that is inherent in production, join together to bargain with employers. Their antipathy for unions is so extreme, though, that it blinds them to just a bit of common sense, and it blinds them to community standards. Even at a time when we have declining real wages and declining living standards, which have been recognised by the Reserve Bank of Australia and by the business community as a handbrake on economic growth, we have a government that is determined to drive those wages and conditions down further. This is the sort of ideology that brought Work Choices to the parliament of Australia on the first occasion on which those opposite had the numbers in both houses. And, with that Work Choices legislation, they destroyed themselves. It should give them pause. They should think back to how clever they thought they were when that Work Choices legislation, with its Orwellian name, passed the House of Representatives and the Senate. It led to their demise as a government. It led to division in Australian workplaces and in the Australian community. In the same way, they're waging a war against penalty rates. They seem completely oblivious to the fact that so many families in their electorates rely upon penalty rates to pay their mortgages, to pay school fees for their kids, to put food on the kitchen table and to pay for the essentials of life. They don't get it.

This legislation is just another example of their obsessive attacks on the trade union movement and its very existence. It purports to impose upon registered organisations and their officials the same level of accountability that applies to company directors. But it doesn't do that. It goes much further than that. It even goes beyond the recommendations of the Heydon royal commission, it goes beyond the government's undertakings in the last election campaign and it contravenes the International Labour Organization's convention 87—the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention of 1948. But they just can't help themselves.

Our nation faces a range of serious challenges that require government attention. Many of them could be the subject of cross-party consensus in the national interest, not the least of which delivering on infrastructure that builds jobs and creates economic growth. We could be using our time usefully working together on such matters. But what we have over and over again from this government are attacks on working people, attacks aimed at undermining the trade union movement, attacks which are ideological and attacks which are against the fair go that Australians hold dear.

In general terms, this bill seeks to increase accountability measures for registered organisations and their office holders, including making it easier to deregister them. It also imposes a new public interest test on proposed union mergers. I've got no problem at all with people who break the law or act inappropriately being prosecuted, as they should be. But my overriding concern is that deregistering trade unions because of inappropriate behaviour by a single official attacks union members who have nothing to do with that bad behaviour. The fact is that it is a punitive approach. It's short-sighted. It's the equivalent of deregistering a company because one of its directors broke the law rather than simply prosecuting the director. Take the various corporate scandals that have occurred, not the least of which were in the banking sector recently. No-one's proposing that those companies be declared illegal and wound up because of the fact that some of our major financial institutions have been financing activities that are completely illegal. Wrongdoing by one official does not justify the denial of industrial representation for an entire workforce.

In his second reading speech, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment went to great lengths to assert that these changes would bring the administration of trade unions, employer organisations and their officers into line with the laws concerning the administration of companies. But, as you go through the provisions, it is clear that it's just not true. The bill allows for disqualification of an officer of a registered organisation to be brought by the commissioner, the minister or what is defined as 'a person with sufficient interest'. There are no safeguards there to prevent vexatious claims. There's no description of how a person qualifies to have sufficient interest. Once a ground is made out for the disqualification of an officer under this provision, the onus of proof is placed upon the officer to establish why disqualification would be unjust. But the equivalent provision under the Corporations Act places no such onus of proof upon company directors facing disqualification. The bill provides no maximum period of disqualification, leaving the matter to the discretion of the court. It also creates penalties for the offence of a disqualified person continuing to influence a registered organisation. But the penalty provided here is double that provided in the Corporations Act.

Similarly, this bill's regime for cancelling the registration of a union is far broader than the Corporations Act's equivalent provisions relating to the winding up of a company. A company, for instance, could repeatedly be found to have put at risk the lives of its workers or to have repeatedly not paid proper wages, but it would not face a wind-up order. By contrast, this bill says a union can be deregistered if some of its members take unprotected industrial action.

The new provisions relating to union amalgamation are way out of whack with the law relating to company mergers. Under the current Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009, it is a simple matter for unions to amalgamate if members vote for amalgamation under a ballot conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission. That's a commonsense provision. It's democracy in action. It's workers being organised on the basis of the views of those workers themselves. That is why those provisions are currently there. No argument has been put by those opposite about why this change is necessary. This bill is deliberately aimed at making it harder for unions to amalgamate. It's clearly aimed at the CFMEU, the MUA and the TCFUA. That's what this is aimed at. It's special legislation that's an attempt to abuse political power and to impose the will of the coalition parties on how unions, specifically, should choose to organise themselves.

It's an extraordinary proposition if we were going to go down this road. It creates a public interest test that the minister claims is the equivalent of the competition test that applies to company mergers, including whether the unions concerned have a record of complying with the law. The test also takes into account the impact an amalgamation would have on employers, employees and the industry concerned. It goes a lot further than the competition test for company mergers. Indeed, companies could have an extensive record of breaches of the law, including the underpaying of wages. That doesn't prevent that company from merging with another company. It should be dealt with on the basis of any breach of the law, just as any breach of the law by unions should be dealt with. When there's a breach of the law the response should be the same whether it's unions, employer organisations or companies.

We shouldn't have the attitude of those opposite, which is to come into this chamber and attempt to engage, essentially, in industrial relations by legislation in order to fulfil the obsession that those opposite have with undermining unions. We on this side of the House want an industrial relations system that punishes wrongdoing, whether by employees, trade unions or employers. You never hear those opposite talk about what's happened with the underpayment of the wages of 7-Eleven workers. You never hear those opposite stand up and talk about industrial accidents and how many people lose their lives on building sites and in the construction sector, the mining sector and other sectors. You never hear those opposite talk about the pressure that transport workers are put under. Indeed, this government came in and undermined the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, a mechanism established after long consultation—with support from major employers—and aimed at producing safe rates, after a parliamentary inquiry that was bipartisan and unanimous in its recommendations. It took years to work through to get a system whereby people weren't pressured into driving practices that weren't safe in order to secure their employment, that it wasn't either/or, and that you had a system whereby throughout the supply chain you had safe practices. It was a measure that had an impact on truck drivers, but also had an impact on all of us who share the roads with truck drivers—a road safety measure that hasn't been replaced with any measures at all by this government.

We've seen again in the transport sector the next tranche of legislation, aimed at removing Australian seafarers from work around our coasts on ships that have the Australian flag on the back of them, paying Australian wages and conditions, and having them replaced by foreign workers being paid foreign wages and working under foreign work conditions. It is extraordinary that the government has been prepared to go down this road. That is why this legislation should be rejected. This is a government that is producing legislation that's all about its ideology. It's not about jobs. It's not about national economic growth. It's not about the national interest. It's not about the interests of working families. It's just about its obsession with the trade union movement. In doing that, it undermines itself, as it did with Work Choices. That's one of the reasons this government is being rejected by the Australian people.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to put my grave opposition to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017, which is before the House tonight. Let's be clear from the start: Labor does not support corruption or misconduct of any kind from anyone, whether they hold a position of power in a union, in a bank or in a kindergarten. We do support appropriate penalties for those who do the wrong thing. But this bill isn't about ensuring integrity, as its name might attempt to suggest. It's just the latest dirty volley in the Turnbull government's relentless war on unions.

The measures in this bill are neither appropriate nor fair. They are an outrageous and egregious imposition on the ability of unions to undertake their important business of protecting workers in Australia. The provisions in this bill are heavy-handed and they set the stage for unprecedented interference in the democratic functions of registered organisations. They dramatically and unfairly expand the ways that a registered organisation can be placed into administration. They open the door to big business, the minister or even lobbyists to influence whether someone is able to hold office in a union. They interfere with the fundamental right of workers to determine the structure of the organisations they choose to represent them. They very likely contravene important international treaties on human rights. For all these reasons, they represent a very real threat to the health of our free democratic society.

The government has fundamentally failed to make the case that there is any sort of systemic problem to justify the sorts of draconian measures it is proposing in this legislation. Of course, those opposite like to pretend that they are merely faithfully implementing the recommendations of the royal commission into trade unions. However, we need to recognise that the royal commission was thoroughly discredited as a political exercise on the day it was revealed that the man who headed up that royal commission had accepted an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser. Regardless of that, this legislation goes well beyond what was recommended by the royal commission.

The Turnbull government will also tell you that this bill evens up the scales and imposes the same rules on unions and their officials which companies and their directors are required to adhere to. For a start, we should recognise that unions and corporations aren't the same in their nature, purpose or resourcing, and they shouldn't be treated as though they are. But, even if they were, the government's claim of legislative equivalence is demonstrably and unquestionably false.

Let's look at a few examples. Firstly, there is the disqualification regime proposed in schedule 1, where an application to disqualify someone from holding office in a union can be placed by the minister or anyone with 'sufficient interest'. What does 'sufficient interest' mean and who could satisfy the criteria? Conceivably, it could mean that an employer, an employer organisation or even a lobbyist could bring an application to disqualify someone from holding a union office. This is a serious infringement on the right of members to choose and democratically elect the people who will represent them, and it opens the door to claims being lodged for purely political reasons. This far exceeds any measure in corporate legislation. It won't surprise you to hear that the government has failed to include any safeguards against frivolous or vexatious claims. The government's hypocrisy here is breathtaking. Yet again, it is a case of one rule for unions and another for the government's mates in big business. You only need to look at the hands-off approach that the government has taken to the terrible instances of corruption in the recent Commonwealth Bank scandal to see where its loyalties lie.

Schedules 2 and 3 of the bill fundamentally change the rules around defining and administering so-called dysfunctional organisations and placing them into administration or deregistering them. Under the proposed legislation, members of a union could see their union disbanded based on the conduct of their officials, even if that conduct happened without the members' knowledge. In the corporate sector there is no equivalent. A company cannot be shut down because of the actions of a corrupt director, and nor should it be. Union members will be forced to pay the price for the actions of a person, which they knew nothing about and had no power to change.

The rank double standard continues with the proposed public interest test around mergers. This is a blatant political response to the planned amalgamation of the MUA and the CFMEU. Coincidently, I understand this bill was released the very week after the government met with 30 oil, gas and mining executives, who reportedly called for a stop to this merger. The current provisions of the Fair Work Act already provide clear process for amalgamations to occur. Having no legitimate basis in the existing legislation to shut down amalgamations, the government had to make something up. Here we are discussing the proof of the Turnbull government's unfailing obedience to its big business masters. The government is trying to pretend that this is the same test that is applied to corporations that want to merge. Again, this is not true. The test imposed on company mergers looks solely at competition, which is clearly irrelevant to unions. In contrast, the test the government poses looks at unions' records of complying with the law. Corporations can have appalling records of not complying with the law and still not be prevented from merging.

The fact that this measure is retrospective reveals beyond a shadow of a doubt the government's true agenda: to shut down the merger of the MUA and the CFMEU by any means possible. Yet again, we see evidence that the government believes in one rule for the unions and yet another for everyone else, just as all the other measures in this bill are transparent attempts to limit the ability of unions to undertake the important work that they do. Make no mistake: we're getting into dangerous and disturbing territory here. We need to be very wary of the combined impact of the Abbott-Turnbull government's ongoing assaults on unions and the impact that's having on the fabric of our society and the health of our democracy.

Despite the deceitful smear campaign those opposite have engaged in ad nauseam, unions perform a critical role in a free and fair society. They provide a check against the power of corporations and they help to even the inevitable power imbalances between employees and employers, particularly for vulnerable workers and those on low incomes. They help to ensure that workers get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and, in doing so, lift the conditions for the whole workforce. A recent International Monetary Fund study found a decline in union membership is a significant factor in the share of national income that employees receive, which in turn is inextricably linked with inequality. Greater inequality threatens growth for the entire nation. Countries with free and active union movements also have more transparent and representative forms of government. But of course the Turnbull government have proven again and again that they don't care about transparent, fair governance, and they clearly don't care about addressing inequality, what with their $650 billion handout to big business, which is funded by ripping services away from the most vulnerable Australians. What they do care about deeply, however, is making it as difficult as humanly possible for unions to function effectively. At every opportunity, those opposite impugn and vilify unions while they use every dodgy trick in the book to shackle their operations.

But there's something much deeper and much more malignant going on here. To view this as just a war on unions misses the point. The government doesn't hate unions, per se; it just hates what they do—which is to fight for fair pay and conditions. The war on unions that is visible for all to see disguises the government's real target, and that is Australian workers. Of course, unions are often the last line of defence to support workers and help them fight for their rights. If workers can't unite to advocate for their own interests, it makes the government's job of driving down pay and conditions a whole lot easier. The real enemy is workers and the real motivation is to weaken their rights, slash their pay and smash their ability to fight back by organising.

This is a government that is actively hostile to Australian workers at every opportunity. Of course, the government have ruthlessly gone after unions, but that's just the beginning. They also put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing against increasing the minimum wage. They support cuts to Sunday penalty rates for up to 700,000 low-income workers. They have actively fostered a shifting balance of power in industrial relations, which has emboldened too many employers to avoid their workplace obligations. They delayed superannuation increases and froze compulsory superannuation contributions, which were legislated to increase steadily to 12 per cent but are now stuck at 9.5 per cent. They savagely cut staff from key frontline government agencies, reducing services and leaving thousands of remaining workers waiting for a pay rise more than three years on.

The Turnbull government's war on workers isn't just cruel; it's also economically reckless. Wages growth is now at record lows, but the government is obsessing on legislation that will undermine workers and stall wages growth even further. Even the Treasurer himself has publicly recognised the dire implications for our national economy of our stagnating wages. But, staggeringly, he's chosen to continue on the very path that has contributed to this appalling situation.

While the explanatory memorandum for the bill promised to 'promote democratic governance in the interests of members of registered organisations', it does exactly the opposite. In fact, there are very real concerns about whether this legislation contravenes Australia's international commitments, which Australia's been a signatory to for decades. In its Human rights scrutiny report: report 9 of 2017, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights raises serious concerns about the human rights implications of this bill. The committee said:

The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 (the bill) contains a number of schedules which impact on the internal functioning of trade unions.

The right to freedom of association includes the right to form and join trade unions. The right to just and favourable conditions of work also encompasses the right to form trade unions. These rights are protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The interpretation of these rights is informed by International Labour Organization (ILO) treaties, including the ILO Convention of 1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize (ILO Convention No. 87) and the ILO Convention of 1949 concerning the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining (ILO Convention No. 98). ILO Convention 87 protects the right of workers to autonomy of union processes including electing their own representatives in full freedom, organising their administration and activities and formulating their own programs without interference. Convention 87 also protects unions from being dissolved, suspended or de-registered and protects the right of workers to form organisations of their own choosing.

A number of measures in this bill, by limiting the ability of unions to govern their internal processes, engage and limit these rights.

The report goes on to outline some specific concerns with many of the measures contained in this bill. Let's be clear: the human rights committee is not prone to making frivolous claims or acting on a political agenda. These are no small matters: in fact they are very grave incursions, which we in this place should take very, very seriously. If the government really cares about acting in the interests of Australian workers, it should protect their rights by pulling this bill and stopping the vicious attacks on the organisations that represent them.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. It gives me no pleasure to speak in this debate, because we shouldn't be having it. This piece of legislation should not be in front of the Australian parliament. It's an insult to all of us. As many of you will know, I live in the Northern Territory, and over many years I've seen the value and importance of organised labour to my community. Many of you will know that my electorate is named after Vincent Lingiari. Vincent, for those of you who don't know, led the walk-off on Wave Hill station, which started a strike which went over a number of years for wages and conditions for Aboriginal pastoral workers and, ultimately, for the recognition and return of Aboriginal land to its original owners.

You can imagine the enthusiasm with which employer organisations around the Northern Territory, and across the country, met this sort of proposal. It's very clear that the way in which this great series of events in Australian history came to a conclusion for the benefit of Aboriginal people was in large part because of the support and work of the trade union movement around this country—in particular, the Maritime Union of Australia, which is disparaged by this government on an ongoing and continuing basis. Now they're opposed to the proposition that this union should amalgamate with the CFMEU, and it is the very target of one aspect of this piece of legislation.

The other particular union was the North Australian Workers' Union, which morphed into the miscellaneous workers union in the Northern Territory. Its workers and organisers and volunteer workers from the Northern Territory and across Australia raised funds and provided material to sustain these strikers over the long strike. Without their assistance, I very much doubt that we would have got the result we did. You would think, the way this piece of legislation before us has been framed, that somehow or another advocates involved in the trade union movement are all criminals and they should not be recognised and their positions should not be taken seriously, but, more importantly, they should be excluded from organising, excluded from making representation, excluded from being advocates for their organisations and excluded from engaging in political activity. That's the purpose of this legislation. It's not about industrial relations; this is purely and simply about politics, coming as it does after that dreadful, dreadful, dreadful royal commission—the Heydon royal commission—set up by this government effectively to interrogate the Leader of the Opposition. That's what it was about—for no outcome, of course. This government could use the recommendations from that royal commission by Commissioner Heydon as the basis for making this legislation.

The government alleges that there's a plethora, a large cohort, of corrupt union officials around this country. There are no facts to support that claim. If corruption or illegal activity exists, then that should be a matter for the criminal courts. Instead, what we're seeing here is a specific piece of legislation targeted directly at the leadership of the trade union movement of this country, the purpose of which is to break the back of their political opposition to this government. Let's be clear—this is nothing more than validating just another plank in this government's anti-union and anti-worker agenda.

According to the Bills Digest, this bill amends the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act to include serious criminal offences punishable by five or more years imprisonment or more as a new category of ‘prescribed offence’ for the purposes of the automatic disqualification regime, which prohibits a person from acting as an official of a registered organisation. What is that about? It is nothing more than targeting and discriminating against the representatives of Australian workers in this country. That is what it's about. We don't have similar requirements for the directors of large corporations in this country. We can't have them being treated the same way as we treat trade union officials—God forbid! We will protect the interests of those from the top end of Phillip Street or Kent Street, whatever you call the financial centre of Sydney, or in Melbourne. It is because they are concerned about the increasing importance of the messages coming out of the trade union movement in this country about the absolute disarray of this government and their disillusionment with this government over the rights of Australian workers that those in the financial centres say to the government, 'We support this piece of legislation; we think it's bloody fantastic.' Well they might. But they shouldn't. If they were fair and reasonable they would know that this legislation should not be supported.

This legislation will allow the Federal Court to prohibit officials from holding office. It will be an offence for a person, once disqualified, to continue to act as an official or in a way that influences the affairs of an organisation. It will allow the Federal Court to cancel the registration of an organisation on a range of grounds. It will allow applications to be made to the Federal Court for other orders, including suspending the rights and privileges of an organisation, an individual, a branch or division of an organisation. Why do we need this? There is no tangible explanation from this government. The trade union leadership across this country have said that where there is illegal and inappropriate activity we should root it out. If there is a problem with criminal offences, if people have made such allegations, that should be taken to the police. But, of course, we know that these are hollow objections about the way in which the trade unions work in this country.

This piece of legislation absolutely stinks. This legislation stinks. Unions are already more highly regulated than corporations and charities. Increasing this regulation even further would only serve to allow the government of the day, the employers, the business lobbyists or anyone with a sufficient interest the power to commence onerous, costly and unreasonable legal proceedings against unions and union leaders. Why would you do this? What is it about Australian working people that annoys you so much? What is it about organised labour that upsets you so much? I'm a proud trade union member and have been all my working life. I say to people: we wouldn't have the country we've got now if it weren't for the trade union movement. That's very clear. Of course, I reckon, given the way that the government have treated penalty rates, if they had been around when the eight-hour day was proposed they would have said: 'We're opposing that. There'll be no eight-hour day. And, by the way, we don't mind sweatshops.' That's what you would do. Why would you do that? 'Because it makes profits. If you make profits, people will invest more. It'll create more sweatshops. They're a great idea!' The basis of the approach from this government is to deny Australian workers access to their representative organisations, who advocate on their behalf and do the things that they want them to do.

This bill does not put corporations and unions on an equal footing. There is no question about that. It's clear that the obligations on registered organisations and their officers are significantly in excess of those imposed on corporations and company directors. Why not do the same? Why don't we have equivalent legislation dealing with company directors and corporations? We know that the government's intention through this bill is to attack the union movement and take workers away from the bargaining table. That's what they really want. 'We can't have you bargaining. We can't have you talking about your rights at work. We can't have you talking about what you're doing at work or what your wage rates are, even though we know that we're facing record low wages growth, rising cost of living pressures and insecure work.' We have 1.1 million Australians looking for more work. This is a government that supports cuts to the take-home pay of those lowest paid Australians. Why would you do that? Why would you target the lowest paid people in this country for the way in which they are trying to make a contribution to themselves and their families when you protect the top end of town? As I said, you look after those with the financial heartbeat, those people who make sure your coffers are full. You protect their interests but not the interests of Australia's lowest paid workers.

We know from the work of the parliament that this piece of legislation is not something which should attract the support of people who are concerned about the rights of workers and our international obligations. I know that my friend the member for Newcastle just spoke about the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and its attitude to this piece of legislation. Why is it that this government sees it as okay to address it in a way which is against the rights of Australian workers, against our international obligations and against the conventions of the International Labour Organization? Why is this okay? How can it be okay? Nothing stops this government, with their extreme right-wing claptrap, bringing into this parliament a piece of legislation which is totally politically motivated and is designed to victimise Australian working people.

This legislation is inconsistent with international law and is totally against the rights and autonomy of workers' organisations. It allows excessive political, corporate and regulatory interference in the democratic function and control of organisations through the expanded standing provisions and grounds for court orders. The cancellation regime proposed by the bill is unsupported by a policy and is not genuinely equivalent to the regulation of corporations. These are the views of Australian trade unions. They don't matter to this government, because this government has effectively said to the Australian union movement across this country, 'Your views don't count. It doesn't matter that the people you represent want you to express those views; your views and, by that very nature, their views are of no importance to us.'

The proposed changes to the amalgamation processes are directly aimed at the CFMEU, the TCF and the MUA. That's all it's about: three organisations wanting to come together to improve their possibilities of representing Australian workers and advocating on their behalf. That's a threat to this government. We can't have advocates, either industrial or political, coming out of the Australian union movement, because they're offensive to us. They're offensive to the way we work, they're offensive to the way we think and they're offensive because they absolutely don't go with the political direction we want to go with in this country. We should condemn this legislation and oppose it.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank all honourable members for their contributions to this debate on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017. This bill will protect workers and union members from the culture of lawlessness within some registered organisations that were identified by the Heydon Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

The Heydon royal commission identified numerous examples of officials breaking their duties; engaging in blackmail, extortion, coercion and secondary boycott conduct; abusing the rights of entry; acting in contempt of court; or failing to stop their organisations from repeatedly breaking the law. The royal commission found that a culture of lawlessness existed in various organisations where such conduct was rampant and officials were unwilling or unable to institute the change necessary. That is why we committed, at the last election, to implement the changes in this bill to ensure that members can trust that their organisations representing them act with integrity and in their best interests.

I turn now to some of the matters raised in the debate. There has been some discussion that the bill imposes harsher or higher standards on registered organisations than on corporations. The bill takes existing provisions of workplace and corporate laws and adapts them for the nature of registered organisations. There is nothing unprecedented about the provisions in the bill, and they don't impose higher or harsher standards on registered organisations than on corporations.

There has also been some discussion that the bill imposes onerous standards on registered organisations that will somehow discourage volunteering within those organisations. This argument is a fallacy. In fact, the bill does not impose any additional obligations at all on officials, voluntary or otherwise, but, rather, it applies consequences for organisations or officials who break the law or breach their duties to members. In addition, just like corporate regulation, the bill does not exempt volunteer officials from consequences for wrongdoing—just as they are not currently exempted. Officials are trusted by members to act in their interests and, of course, to obey the law, regardless of whether they are paid or not.

There has been some discussion that the bill expands the range of people who have standing to a point where government and businesses can supposedly interfere with a registered organisation's affairs. This is, again, another fallacy. The standing rules in the bill are based on provisions that already exist in the Fair Work Act and Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act. They give standing only to those parties with a genuine and sufficient interest. However, importantly and significantly, it is only the independent umpires, the Federal Court and the Fair Work Commission, that have the power to make orders to address law-breaking behaviour. The bill does nothing to change this existing status. The bill will not encourage frivolous or vexatious claims, which can already be dismissed and costs imposed by both the Federal Court and the Fair Work Commission.

The suggestion, again, that the bill does not comply with Australia's international legal obligations is incorrect. The ILO convention on freedom of association provides workers with the freedom to join unions but also requires that unions comply with the law of the land. This does not diminish the right to join a registered organisation, but it does require compliance with existing Australian laws, and this is wholly consistent with the convention.

There has also been debate about whether the bill targets the CFMEU. The bill is not targeting any particular official or registered organisation. What it targets is law-breaking behaviour. The provisions apply equally to any official or organisation that continually flouts the law, breaches duties or fails to put their members first. That the CFMEU is consistently raised in the context of this bill says more about its behaviour than the measures in the bill.

There has also been debate about the need for the public interest test for mergers introduced by the bill. I would remind all members that a public interest test previously applied until the introduction of Labor's Fair Work Act. Prior to this time, the public interest needed to be taken into account when the predecessor to the Fair Work Commission was performing its functions in relation to registered organisation matters. The public interest test in the bill will ensure that organisations with a culture of lawlessness cannot seek to expand their influence and their operating model through mergers. In addition, when companies seek to merge, they must first satisfy a regulator—in that case, the ACCC—that the merger won't, in that instance, damage the public interest by substantially lessening competition. Such a merger can only be approved by the Australian Competition Tribunal if it would be in the public interest—again, consistent with the approach in this bill for registered organisations.

Finally, there has been some discussion about consultation on the bill. Consultation was undertaken on the draft bill before it was introduced as part of the standard consolation process on industrial legislation. The bill also responds to the findings and recommendations of the two-year long royal commission, which had 189 days of hearings, heard from 505 witnesses, and conducted public hearings all over Australia. In addition, the amendments in the bill have been government policy since June 2016, when we committed to them before the last election.

I'd like to thank the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for their inquiry into this bill, and those individuals and organisations who have contributed by preparing written submissions and giving evidence at public hearings. I note that the committee made no recommendations for amendment to the bill, and I therefore, commend the bill to the House.

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

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Gorton has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

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

The question now is that the bill be read a second time.

Bill read a second time.