Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The CFMMEU has given over $10 million to the Labor Party since the last watchdog was abolished. Is the Prime Minister aware of the case of a female operations manager being targeted and verbally abused to the extent that she cried, felt fearful and ill? Why does the Prime Minister keep dismissing this issue when the welfare of 150,000 women working in the construction sector is at stake?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mallee for her question. As I've said repeatedly, behaviour such as that which she has described is completely unacceptable. That's why the Fair Work Ombudsman will be responsible, along with Fair Work Australia, for ensuring that industrial relations law is appropriately applied to any union or any employer. It's as simple as that.

My principle is also that all workers should be subject to the same laws and regulations as others. It's not a radical proposition that we're putting forward here. Our workplace relations system must be based upon fairness, mutual trust, respect and obeying the rule of law. That's our position. It's as simple as that. What we have from the ABCC, though, is that there's substantial commentary about how it was supposed to have improved the way that the sector might operate. We'd expect, during the period the ABCC was the regulator, for there to be improvements in labour productivity in the construction sector. You would expect that to be the case. But, if you look at the facts, in 2017-18 productivity was down by 2.4 per cent; in 2018-19 it was down by 2.6 per cent; in 2019-20 it was down by 2.6 per cent also. The ABCC is supposed to be improving the way that the sector operates, and yet we have labour productivity going down year after year after year.

You would expect, also, the issue of construction costs to be there. The construction costs of the last five years in the heavy and civil engineering sector have risen by up to 20 per cent. Of course, if you look at the total expenditure on the ABCC, since it was established—from 2016 up to this year—its total budget is some $233 million. This year alone, it was some $34 million. During that period, the ABCC boss, Nigel Hadgkiss, had to resign in 2017 because he was caught breaching the Fair Work Act himself. So we take a very clear view, which is: bad behaviour is unacceptable, full stop, of either employers or employees. Bad behaviour is unacceptable. All workers should be subject to the same laws and regulations as others.