Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Former Justice Wilcox found in his inquiry into the building industry that substantially there were men and women in the industry who worked in accordance with their awards and their agreements and who acted honourably and obviously vigorously in conducting their campaigns to improve their wages and conditions. But there were elements who did not. In fact, Mr Wilcox made recommendations in relation to those elements who did not. What is wrong with that? That is what the minister outlined this afternoon. In the legislation that the Deputy Prime Minister has put forward in the House of Representatives, the elements who do not act conscientiously, consistently and honourably will have to go before this inspectorate and be dealt with that way. I do not see that there is anything particularly wrong with that. Whether in Victoria or Western Australia, if these men and women act in a reprehensible way and bring shame and dishonour on the trade union movement, they should have to go under different guidelines to any other man or woman in the building and construction industry, the transport industry, the liquor industry or any other industry. If these men and women act in a reprehensible way then they should be dealt with in a different way. That is what our legislation says. I do not see how Senator Fisher or any of the other speakers who are going to follow me can fault that, because, as Mr Wilcox said in his inquiry, there are men and women who do act in an honourable way and why should they be subject to the same sort of scrutiny as those who do not? I would be interested in their contributions to tell me why that should be the case.

We in the Australian Labor Party have always believed that men and women have an entitlement to collectively bargain. That is something they do not accept on the other side, but we do. Some employers prefer to have a collective bargain rather than individual ones. That is an entitlement that they were able to exploit individually under the previous government.

All I would say to the coalition is this: it is about time they understood that they are in opposition and that it is a long, hard road to get back into government rather than acting like they are a government in absentia. That is exactly what we have seen in the last few weeks and months from the coalition. Be constructive. The Australian people will respond to you if you are constructive. But if you continue to be negative and try to look for little points that do not mean anything except to selected groups of people then you will find yourselves in the wilderness for longer than you think.