Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2012. In my contribution I will address some of the comments Senator Abetz made. Firstly, let me give an important summary, one that was a little bit missed in Senator Abetz's contribution, about the purpose of the bill and what it is for and why it is important for the government to act at this point in time.

It does surprise me a little bit that the opposition seems to want to criticise the government when they do things and it wants to criticise the government when they do not do things. When the government move to act and tighten up the laws in relation to registered organisations, we are criticised for doing so. But if we had not moved to tighten up some of the laws that apply to registered organisations, we would have been accused of failing to do so. The opposition, once again, seeks to walk both sides of the road and there is complete inconsistency with what it says.

This bill, as we know, seeks to increase the accountability—financial and otherwise—of registered organisations and their office holders. The bill will improve the way that investigations into breaches of the registered organisations provisions are conducted. The proposed amendments in the bill seek to achieve this aim. There will be a requirement that the rules of all registered organisations must deal with disclosure of remuneration and pecuniary and financial interests. There is a threefold increase to civil penalties under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act. There is a strengthening of the investigative powers of Fair Work Australia and there is a requirement that education and training be provided to officials and registered organisations about their governance and accounting obligations. All these things are things that the opposition, in various ways, have raised as issues that need to be dealt with, yet when the government seek to introduce amendments to the bill to deal with these issues, they criticise us for doing so.