John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the Attorney outline to the House how the Morrison government is creating stability and certainty in the building sector by cracking down on unlawful behaviour on building sites across Australia? Is the Attorney aware of alternative policies?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bennelong for his question. The member refers to government policy, being the Ensuring Integrity Bill, which establishes a fit-and-proper-person test for holding public office in registered organisations—both employer and employee organisations. Why is that necessary? It is because militant unions like the CFMEU have now racked up more than $16.7 million in fines and 2,190 incidents of lawbreaking—and that's just for industrial laws.

Of course, we heard that John Setka resigned from the Labor Party yesterday—not from the union movement; from the Labor Party. The point about the necessity of this legislation is that, whilst John Setka is clearly a problem, the problem is much bigger than John Setka. Of those $16.7 million worth of fines and 2,190 incidents of breaking the law, John Setka is responsible for only 22 offences, or one per cent of that lawbreaking. In fact, since January 2017, of the 80 CFMEU officials who've racked up 420 contraventions of industrial law, none of them have been John Setka.

I am asked the question by a tennis great—a tennis great who was ranked in 1975 at No. 8 in the world. The reality is that, notwithstanding John Setka's amazing record of lawbreaking, if he were in the grand slam of lawbreaking on construction sites, he wouldn't even be a ranked player this year—not even a ranked player this year—because everyone else in the CFMEU is doing an amazing job themselves at lawbreaking.

I'm asked about alternative policies. The Labor alternative is to do nothing about out-of-control behaviour of unions and to oppose the legislative change that would do something about that. Why? Well, that might have somebody do with the $14 million given to the ALP since the year 2000 by the CFMEU. I wanted to just note the Leader of the Opposition's comments on this matter. We know from this week that the Leader of the Opposition has an unshakeable, a watertight, a near-fanatical commitment to straight answers, and he was asked a straight question the other night. Leigh Sales said of Mr Setka, 'It is not just him,' and asked:

… will the Labor Party keep taking money from that branch of the union?

The opposition leader said:

… the CFMEU is affiliated to the Labor Party …

LEIGH SALES: So that is a yes, I take it?

She says:

… it's a pretty straight question—will you keep taking their money with him as leader?

The opposition leader said:

Well, they're affiliated to the Labor Party …

Is it a yes or a no? Are you going to keep taking money from the CFMEU—a yes or no? But it's okay, because we had the shadow AG clear it all up when he was asked the question by Hamish Macdonald, 'Clearly all those breaches don't just go down to Setka; don't quibble'— (Time expired)