David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. What action is the government taking to clean up the CFMEU, and what threatens to delay this action?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At around 3 o'clock today in the Senate, there will be a vote as to whether or not the legislation to intervene and to put administrators into the CFMEU gets dealt with in that house today. If it's carried, the impact of that legislation will be that the current leadership of the CFMEU is removed and an administrator is put in. The administrator will have the power to go person by person through the different office holders in the union and make sure that people are of proper character and, if they're not, remove them. They'll be able to look at the financial flow and make sure that money is not being improperly spent. They'll be able to make sure that CFMEU members get what other union members get, and that is a union that acts in their interests.

After the number of times that we've heard those opposite say that they would be tough on the CFMEU, what I never expected was that, at this moment, the person who might be riding to the rescue of John Setka would be the Leader of the Opposition. There are two sorts of people who want this legislation delayed: there are the CFMEU's lawyers and there are the Liberals and the Nationals in the Senate, directed by the Leader of the Opposition. He might think that he was always tough on them because he used to come up and give really tough dixers, but I've never seen an outlaw motorcycle gang say, 'Oh, I'm scared of the dorothy dixer from the now Leader of the Opposition.' What they would say is they are scared that their business model is broken, and they know that this legislation breaks that business model. We are now down to half an hour before that debate starts in the Senate. The Leader of the Opposition has to decide whether he's true to the words that he's made a career of talking about, or whether he's about to become John Setka's best friend.

The contrast couldn't be greater. On one side of the table, we have someone who, within weeks of becoming leader of his party, expelled John Setka from the Labor Party, and the person sitting opposite him is now wanting to see if he can be the saviour of the current leadership of the CFMEU. If he won't listen to reason, he should at least listen to people who are not on our side of politics but have made their positions clear. Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia, who is not a card-carrying member of the Labor Party, says:

… it's disappointing to date that they are not listening to the industry. They're not listening to the people on the ground that are saying we want administration, not deregistration.

Jon Davies from the Constructors Association refers to the fact that the delay is beginning to have 'tangible effects on the industry in terms of both project outcomes and business operations'. If they want to save the leadership of the CFMEU, it's on them.