Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am disappointed that the Labor Party with their union background are not interested in my family's union involvement. But I do want to continue on the motion before us which is the referral of the matter to yet another Senate committee, to do exactly the same job as the other Senate committee has done.

My dear uncle was a lovely fellow. I knew him later in life. He wrote some very good books, including one called The puffing pioneers and Queensland's railway builders. I do, however, point out he was a communist. Remember, the communist unions during the early part of World War II when Russia and Germany were together. The communist trade union movement in Australia combined with Nazi Germany and communist Russia to try to prevent the proper prosecution of the early days of the war. Whilst I am not suggesting at the moment that unions would have that sort of deleterious goal for the Australian economy, I think all of these things need to be taken in context.

Senator McEwen asked why we did not want the unions. I do not agree that we did not want the unions. But the answer to that question is about the general philosophical divide between Liberal and Labor. The Liberal Party believe in the individual. We believe that people should be allowed to work to their capacity and to earn the rewards. They do not always need big government and Big Brother looking over their shoulder, the collective overwhelming the individual. That is what the Labor Party's philosophy is. I know that is your philosophy. It is a philosophy that most Australians do not agree with, but it is your philosophy. Good on you; continue to have it.

I am told how great the unions are. I do not necessarily disagree. I look at Mr Thomson, Mr Williamson and the HSU and a few other outrageous scandals we have heard about. Talking about ordinary Australians—Mr Thomson and Mr Williamson, ordinary Australians? Not in my way of thinking. If the unions are doing the great job you say they are doing, I ask this of the next Labor Party speaker who gets up to speak: why is it that only 16 per cent of Australian workers in the private workforce think it is worthwhile joining a union? Does anyone have an answer to that? Am I wrong? Is it not 16 per cent? Perhaps it is 17 per cent or 15 per cent. There is deathly silence from the Labor benches for the first time in this debate. Perhaps my figures are correct, that just 16 per cent of workers in private industry who are eligible to join the trade union movement choose to do so. If my arithmetic is right, that is something like 80 per cent of workers who do not see any value in the unions. But for the 15 or 16 per cent who do see value, good on them. I am all in favour of them joining together and doing what they want. But I do not like people being forced into doing anything they do not want to do or things that are contrary to law. Regrettably, I have heard of experiences up in Queensland in the coalfields and elsewhere where people have been ostracised if they chose not to join a union. In fact, I could tell you a story about how the unions ostracised someone simply because a member of their family was an LNP member of parliament. But I will not go there and I will get back to the debate before the chamber.

The legislation under review is legislation which does not do the sorts of things Labor are pretending it might do. What it will do is put union officials in the same category as company directors. If it is good enough to send company directors to jail when they break the law, it is appropriate that anyone who breaks the law should go to jail. It is appropriate that they get very substantial fines. But why does the same not apply to a union director, someone who has the same duties, powers and obligations as a company director but happens to be a director of union? Why should they only be subject to a $10,200 fine when the company director is subject to a $340,000 fine? If a company director breaks the law, he could be subject to a term of imprisonment of up to five years. If a union organiser or a union director breaks the law, there is no possibility of a term in jail.

Any fair-minded person would say that crooks in the trade union movement—and we know there are at least a couple of them—should be subjected to the same penalties as crooks in the corporate world. If you are a crook, you are a crook and you deserve the same sort of punishment. Give me a decent reason why this should be any different. The opposition were very vocal a little while ago, but they seemed to have lost their tongues when I asked them why only 16 per cent of workers in private industry bother to join the trade union movement. That does not make me anti union. If you like, I will tell you the story about my uncle Viv, the communist trade union guy, but you are not interested in that.