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

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I think I hit it in one. Someone has given Senator Cash a speech to read out here to filibuster for the rest of the day so that, again, the opposition can get up and complain that, 'We have had 20 speakers on this bill and we do not have time for a committee stage.' For these sorts of bills on any other occasion you would have a couple of speakers and you would support the government because you know the government is actually doing the right thing.

Just for your edification, Senator Cash, let me explain to you how unions are not-for-profit organisations. They do not operate for the purpose of having business or trading at a profit. In the end, the Corporations Law is fundamentally designed to regulate businesses that turn a profit or, even if they are not-for-profit businesses, are otherwise engaged in trading. Unions do not participate in businesses. They are not a business. Unions do not have shareholders and they do not have customers. They have members. Accountability and transparency need to be delivered back to members. That is best done by specialist legislation. It is how it has always been done in Australia. It is best done by having a regulatory regime that is focused on the specific nature of an industrial organisation.

The argument that the opposition runs is that we should, in fact, have registered organisations governed by the Corporations Act. It has millions of businesses within it, but it will somehow deliver greater accountability and greater regulation than a specialist regulator that simply deals with the fewer than 200 registered organisations in this country. It makes no sense and it is illogical to suggest that regulation of registered organisations would be better dealt with under the Corporations Law. It clearly would not. It is simply another furphy.

We also heard Senator Abetz refer to a number of organisations that could have appeared before the committee. He mentioned the MBA. But the Liberal Party only asked for three people to appear before the committee. They asked for Mr Doug Williams, a member of the HR Nicholls Society, they asked for Mr John Lloyd, a member of the HR Nicholls Society, and they asked for Stuart Wood QC, a member of the HR Nicholls Society, to appear. Maybe we could have just asked the HR Nicholls Society to appear in its own right instead of having members of the HR Nicholls Society appear. It was then left to the government members of the committee to actually ask employer organisations and unions to appear. It was left to the government senators to ask for registered organisations to appear. So, in the end, it was the government members of the committee that invited ACCI, the AiG and the ACTU to appear.

The one member of the HR Nicholls Society that took up the offer to appear was Mr John Lloyd. Mr John Lloyd's evidence was quite interesting, but the fact that he came to lecture the Senate on how registered organisations should govern themselves got a bit problematic for him at the end of it. Mr Lloyd, a prominent member of the HR Nicholls Society, is now a director of the IPA, a right-wing conservative think tank. He was telling the Senate how registered organisations should govern themselves. But when I asked him, 'Who are members of the IPA?' he said: 'They are just people who agree to membership. They are people from anywhere in Australia. They can just donate money. Anyone can join and donate money.' I asked, 'Is it a company?' He said: 'I'm not too sure how it is set up. There is a board of the IPA. I think it is just an organisation. It is not a company, I do not think, but I am not sure of that.' I said, 'You are a director of the IPA and you do not know how it is set up.' Mr Lloyd said: 'I know there is a board. I do not think there is a corporate structure.' Here was a director of the IPA lecturing the Senate on how registered organisations should be set up, but he does not even know how an organisation that he is a director of is governed. He does not know whether it is a company. He does not know whether it is an organisation. He does not know what it is. If you do not know what a company or an organisation is that you are a director of, how do you know what rules govern it? How do you know how to govern yourself? How do you know what rules govern that?

Here was a guy, the HR Nicholls Society champion, John Howard's Work Choices spear thrower, coming here while not knowing how his own organisation is governed. The hypocrisy of the people who the Liberal Party get to come and run their political agenda before Senate committees is absolutely breathtaking. Mr John Lloyd needs to get over himself. He needs to work out how his own organisation is governed and what legal rules apply to it before he comes lecturing us about what we are doing in this place.

Debate interrupted.