Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. I have withdrawn. Through the chair, I withdraw.

I go back to this ridiculous position we have in front of us, where those on that side think that they are so clever because they go and bash a few unions because it suits the top end of town. I came off the road when I had two young children. It was time to come home and try to be more than a part-time father. It was time to stop running between Perth and Darwin and try to be home every night. I was employed as an organiser with the Transport Workers Union. I was employed as an organiser with the Transport Workers Union not because I was an apparatchik and not because they wanted to put me in parliament—nothing could be further from the truth. It was because I was a truck driver. It was because I valued a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Fourteen years later, I left and entered the Senate. But it really irks me when smartypants on that side make ridiculous statements and they have got no idea of our backgrounds. I dismiss the ridiculous contribution from Senator McKenzie. I do not think she would be the only one.

This bill is a nonsense. I could waffle on about what it is all supposed to do. This is ideology as its craziest. This is the Liberal Party, with the help of the Nats, paying back the top end of town. But they are also throwing out a blanket, because they want to talk about some unfortunate misdemeanours we have seen from a couple of people who were employed in union leadership roles. Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, I know your background too. Apart from being a father of two and a hardworking senator for 18 years, you have been a very successful union secretary. You served a massive membership. The majority of your membership respected not only your intelligence but your thoughts and your wisdom. You represented mainly women, a lot of people who had English as a second language and those working in stores and shops.

This bill is the government delivering to the top end of town. Employers who do the right thing have absolutely nothing to fear in dealing with unions. Employers who are doing the right thing—and there are many, many employers out there that do the right thing; unfortunately it is a few ratbags that bring the rest of them down—have nothing to fear with collective bargaining. But what they have got to fear is when the opposition come out to deliver their thankyous to the top end of town.

If we are talking about the corrupt few, I say: throw the buggers in jail and throw the key away. I am not just making that up. I would have full support from the union movement. They are not the sort of people that we want in the movement. But they are not the only ones, unfortunately, who may be corrupt or who are doing the wrong thing. I have got some statistics I wish to share with you, Mr Acting Deputy President. They are about ASIC. For a bit of background, for those who may not know: ASIC is Australia's corporate market and financial services regulator. ASIC is an independent Commonwealth government body. ASIC is set up under and administered under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act and carries out most of its work under the Corporations Act. ASIC currently comes under the portfolio responsibilities of the Assistant Treasurer. Who does ASIC regulate? It regulates Australian companies, financial markets, financial services, organisations and professions who deal and advise in investments, superannuation, insurance, deposit taking and credit. Why am I telling you that? Because I want to tell you of some of the fine work that ASIC has done. In the last three financial years, there have been 79 criminal proceedings completed, 74 people convicted and 45 people jailed—not union secretaries but businesspeople. There have been 30 non-custodial sentences or fines, 73 civil proceedings completed and 70 illegal schemes shut down or other action taken—and I have not even started on that scenario in Western Australia with the Vietnamese market gardeners. There have been 228 people disqualified or removed from directing companies. ASIC also publish enforcement reports. The most recent one is for July to December 2013, for which the media statement says:

ASIC achieved 340 enforcement outcomes. This included criminal as well as civil and administrative (e.g. a banning or disqualification) actions, and negotiated outcomes, including enforceable undertakings (EU).

What I am saying is, if you want to look where all the crooks are, it is not how to work out where most of them are. They are in the boardrooms. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, it is absolutely ridiculous, the contribution from the other side.

I want to allude to Senator Back's contribution. I have the greatest respect for Senator Back. We do a lot of work together in our RRAT committee. RRAT—for those who are listening—is not what you might think it is; it is rural and regional affairs and transport. Senator Back is very well regarded in agricultural industry, but he is way off track in this debate. I will tell you why he is way off track. In the closing couple of minutes that were available to him yesterday, Senator Back wanted to attack the Maritime Union of Australia. Before that mob over there get all excited and get their undies in a twist, I am just going to make it very clear that I am a personal friend of Christy Cain, the state secretary of the MUA in Perth, and I know you are too, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop. Christy is a fantastic representative of maritime workers and waterside workers on the waterfronts throughout Western Australia.

But Senator Back had a whack at 50 employees—I think there are about 50, but I will stand corrected—offshore in Port Hedland. I believe they work in the port for Teekay Shipping. Some background: I would hope that every Western Australian would know this, but in Port Hedland every day there are about 30 or 40 ships waiting offshore to get in and load predominantly iron ore out of Port Hedland and get it to the Asian Markets, the Chinese markets, the Indian markets or wherever it needs to go. We have about 50 of these guys, who followed John Howard's dream of actually having to have secret ballots for whether they wanted to take industrial action. They followed John Howard's dream, they had the vote for the Fair Work Commission and they voted to take industrial action on a secret ballot basis. But it does not suit those on that side that there was a secret ballot and workers actually made up their minds that they wanted to take industrial action.

What do they want to take industrial action about? With Senator Back and the Libs it is all about going out there—in my words, not theirs—to try to destroy the iron ore industry or however they put it. They put their case forward: how dare these maritime workers or seamen go out there and want to take action because of safety issues that may cost—and I am using Senator Back's figures here, but I think I did read them in one of the journals to The Australian, which is not to say I like reading The Australian, but obviously I had nothing better to do for that three minutes—the industry about $100 million a day, and the action that was supported could last for seven days. So we have an industry that could lose $100 million a day. You think to yourself: 'A hundred million dollars a day? Crikey, that's a lot of money.' But then you think to yourself, 'Why the hell do these workers want to take industrial action?'

I will tell you what I did. I rang Christy Cain and spoke to Christy. What it is is that, in the trucking industry, aviation, the mines and everywhere, we have fatigue management policies. It is enshrined in legislation, and workers are protected through occupational health and safety laws to be able to have certain hours of rest and certain hours of work. It is done for a very good reason: to protect not only workers on the site but other workers, particularly in the transport industry—which this mob want to steal from us too in terms of getting remunerated for it. We want our drivers safe. The miners want their miners safe. We want other workers safe. And the seamen, waterside workers and maritime workers want to be safe too.

Christy told me about the BHP shipping operations out of Port Hedland. I was told very clearly—and I know this for a fact anyway—that BHP has fatigue management systems. They have safety procedures everywhere you go. Any of us who have visited a BHP site knows the rules and knows that occupational health and safety is foremost in their mind, and so it should be. And the mining industry does too. It is great, because it is a dangerous industry. But these rules that govern miners and truck drivers are not enforced for the maritime operation. Through Teekay Shipping, who contract to BHP in Port Hedland, whose maritime workers' job every day is to get these ships in nice and quick, get them loaded and push them out, I am told very clearly that these guys are working 12- to 14-hour shifts per day. You think that is a long stretch, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. These guys and girls are actually working these 12- to 14-hour days 28 days in a row. With the greatest of respect, it is all very well for BHP—and if I am off the Christmas list for BHP, stiff—to have rules that govern workers on mines. It is all right for BHP to have rules that govern truck drivers' hours when they are on their sites or come into their sites, which we support. But it does not have to affect workers or cover workers on the ocean. I say to the MUA and their 50 members: good on you, boys. Stick it up them. You want to get home safely.

I do not want to sound alarmist, but what would happen if one of those ships ended up on the beach or, worse still, some other terrible accident happened in the port of Port Hedland because these guys are fatigued? I am backing them. Good on you, fellas. These ships can weigh up to 250,000 tonnes. It alarms me that senators from that side—and I am talking about the Libs and the Nats—cannot get their thoughts past the poor company that may have some financial penalties imposed upon them because workers want to be safe. You guys have got to get real, seriously. You have to save your whips and your ministers. I am too embarrassed to make stupid contributions like that; but, unfortunately, some of them have.

While I am on that, there is another fear there too. Trust me, there is always another angle. Not only did the MUA have to be condemned by Liberals—particularly Liberals from WA, which makes it worse—because how dare they want to be safe; there is another game being played. As Christy Cain informed me earlier, there is a mob—you would be aware of this, Bob—called Saipan. I believe they are an Italian company. I remember Saipan because, when I was out there trucking through the eighties and early nineties in the Pilbara, they were the mob that built the gas pipeline from Karratha to Bunbury. They are working for Inpex, who are building the underwater pipeline through the Ichthys field to Darwin. Saipan are now saying that they have 33 barge loads. I cannot tell you the tonnage—I wish I could—but it is significant. That is 33 trips from Kupang, where these pipes are being made, to come down to be laid as part of their project out there on the ocean to take the pipeline to Darwin. That in itself is good, no worries; it is tremendous and good for Australia. But I will tell you want is not good for Australia: that work has always been performed by Australian workers.

I come from WA, and some on that side may attack me and say I have this thing against foreign workers, but I do not. We welcome foreign workers. This country was built on foreign workers. I am first-generation Australian. But I really have a problem when foreign workers are used when Australian workers are sitting around with their hands in their pockets. They are used because—and I will take my 32 steps and say it outside publicly—they will be paid a heck of a lot less than Australian workers.