Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I am sure that you, like me, are very pleased that Australian workplaces are largely cooperative and characterised by harmony and productivity. Fortunately, when most Australians go to their workplaces, there are certain things that they take for granted. Indeed, Australians are entitled to expect certain elements in their work life. They expect not to be intimidated and coerced, they expect to enjoy the freedom to associate and they expect to be allowed to do the job that they were employed to do.

Until relatively recently, there was one industry in Australia that did not provide this environment for its workers. It was an industry rife with criminal activity, violence, intimidation, coercion and lawlessness. I speak, of course, about the commercial building and construction industry. This industry was rife with illegal activity, and these were the findings of the Cole royal commission, whose final report was presented in 2003 and which picked up where the New South Wales Giles royal commission left off in 1992. The Cole commission found and identified 392 separate instances of unlawful conduct during the course of its investigations. Of course it will come as no surprise that the main culprits behind the intimidation, the coercion and the blatant disregard for the rule of law were militant elements of the trade union movement, particularly the CFMEU and the ETU.