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

It's been a big 24 to 48 hours in the workplace relations area in regards to the Registered Organisations Commission, or 'ROC', as it has been nicknamed, and in regards to the Minister for Employment. It may come as a surprise to people if they have been fixated on Senate estimates that there also has been a break in the case with the locked-out Tieri miners. They have been locked out now for 112 days and counting. Many people in this place have stood up and criticised the Oaky North coalminers who have been locked out of their workplace. They have said many things in this place which have since been found to be untrue, but what they have not done is come in here and criticise Glencore, although on Monday the Fair Work Commission actually found, as an AFR article reports:

… Glencore had breached the good faith bargaining requirements of the Fair Work Act by operating a "… quasi military" surveillance project, by delivering 26 workers disciplinary notices for alleged misbehaviour on picket lines and on social media, and by forcing union members to change their normal workwear to ensure that the union logo was not worn at the mine.

The commission 'slapped down' Glencore for engaging quasi-military security—because they had been following their workers outside of work hours. They had been surveilling them in their homes. They had been surveilling them when they dropped their children off to school. Tieri is a small mining town, and people notice when a quasi-military group is taking photos of their neighbours. We haven't yet seen anybody on the government side slap down Glencore for their behaviour. All we have seen, all we continue to see, from this government are repeated attacks on workers and repeated attacks on union members.

There are other questions that this government still needs to answer. Will the immigration minister say no to INPEX? They want to bring in foreign workers to work on our offshore gas facilities. The AWU, again, are saying, 'We have unemployed workers willing to do that work.' Will the immigration minister stand by those workers and ensure that Australian workers get those jobs first? We also have another case where the CFMEU has had a win against—

Proceedings suspended from 10:27 to 10:40

In conclusion, earlier this month the Fair Work Ombudsman proved that 457 visa workers in this country have been unlawfully discriminated against because of their nationality and race. There are serious issues going on in Australian workplaces and with employers. This government is not doing enough to crack down on them.