Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the cost of building major infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and tunnels, is being impacted by militant union behaviour?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question and congratulate him on his excellent inaugural speech earlier today. I know how vitally important infrastructure is to him and to the people living in his electorate, particularly the Coffs Harbour bypass. The Liberals and Nationals are getting on with the job of building that $1 billion-plus piece of infrastructure—with tunnels. You won't find a stronger advocate for this than the member for Cowper. He fought hard for it; he is going to deliver it.

But what is so frustrating and annoying is unlawful union militancy, which is driving up the cost of infrastructure right across the country, right across this nation. The member for Cowper knows all too well the cost of unlawful behaviour to society. He has seen it firsthand as a frontline police officer, as a detective and as a police prosecutor on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. The Master Builders Association has estimated that infrastructure projects in Australia, including schools, hospitals and roads, cost up to 30 per cent more due to union militancy and unlawful industrial action. It's not just the Master Builders Association that has highlighted this issue. The Business Council of Australia in 2012, and Infrastructure Australia the following year, suggested that infrastructure is 40 per cent more expensive in Australia than in the United States of America. The McKell Institute in 2016 suggested that a two-lane undivided road costs 78 per cent more in Australia than in the European Union, 53 per cent more than in Canada, 42 per cent more than in the US, and 26 per cent more than in the United Kingdom.

What do the unions think about this? Sadly, unfortunately—unbelievably—they're quite proud of it. They think that they are above the law. The CFMMEU alone has been slapped with more than $16 million on more than 2,000 contraventions of industrial laws in recent years—big fines. This is a terrible union. In 2017, the ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, in regards to industrial law, said, 'I don't think there's a problem with breaking it'. That's what she said. Well, there is a problem with breaking the law.

Then we have Greens leader, Senator Di Natale, on Sunday saying that his party had a 'strong and proud tradition' of civil disobedience. He said: 'I'm the only member of the Greens that hasn't been arrested yet.' That is what he told Insiders. So I remind the member for Melbourne that we're supposed to make, not break, the law in this place. We are supposed to make the law, not break the law.

The Liberal-National government are proud of our delivery on infrastructure. We're spending $100 billion on infrastructure over the next decade. What we don't want to see is cost overruns caused by militant unions, caused by recklessness, caused by people breaking the law—whether they're the Greens or whether they're the unions. We make the laws; we shouldn't be breaking the laws. (Time expired)