Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

Well, the former Labor leader that Senator Bilyk helped knife off, Ms Gillard, in her exit interview with Slater and Gordon admitted that every union has a slush fund. So, Senator Bilyk, I either take your word or Ms Gillard's, your former celebrated Prime Minister. One or the other must be right or wrong. I will let the public of Australia determine as to whether Senator Bilyk or Ms Gillard was correct, but I am not going to get involved in that debate.

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

Senator Collins, another former union official. They come into this place thick and fast. The simple fact is this: Ms Gillard said it in her exit interview with Slater and Gordon, 'Every union has a slush fund.' She is either right or wrong. We believe that there should not be this sort of mechanism that is now being shown with the Australian Workers Union and its Victorian 2020 fund that collected $250,000. A union official, using the union's name, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars but never put it through the union books—exactly the trick of Ralph Blewett and Bruce Wilson 20 years earlier. The CFMEU started off a drug and alcohol fund—a very worthy cause. There was $1 million allegedly raised for it from employers and elsewhere. The sad fact is it appears that not one cent has actually been spent on that. But it will be revealed in the royal commission in due course whether or not that has occurred. We then hear about the Electrical Trades Union waterfront mansion for one of their officials and so the list goes on. It seems to us as a government, having taken these issues to the Australian people, that this is the sort of legislation that nearly every union member actually wants because it protects their money.

I have got news for those sitting opposite. As I go around factory floors and other workplaces in Australia, the vast majority of the workers that are actually union members—so it is a majority of a very clear minority—say that they are members of a union not because they want to hold hands and sing Solidarity Forever but because they see their membership as an insurance policy for their own protection. So the relationship is a bit like house insurance: it is a payment they make in the hope they will never have to use it. But you know what? Union members want a proper guarantee that their money will be used for the purposes for which they give it. And that is why insurance companies have robust reporting mechanisms required of them as should registered organisations.

It is passing strange that having announced this legislation as we did before the election, which Labor says is completely unnecessary, Mr Shorten, in one of the most clumsy, flat-footed approaches and indeed panicked by our policy, raced into this place with some legislation which Labor and the Greens rammed through this place without proper consideration, which has now left the reporting requirements in an absolute shambles. Indeed, the trade union movement has been to me requesting that we amend Mr Shorten's legislation because it was so hopeless. The Senate committee looking into our bill suggested we make amendment to the existing legislation to undo the mess Mr Shorten created with the help of those Labor and Green senators sitting opposite. Yet again, it is another example where Labor, in its dying days and in cahoots with the Greens in this place, forced through legislation that was not thought out, that tied people up in red tape serving no useful purpose and then tried to window-dress to overcome the need for what everybody understands is necessary—that is, a more robust supporting system and stronger penalties.

Now we have before this place, as part of this legislation, some amendment to fix up Mr Shorten's mess. Labor and the Greens, I suspect, will be voting down this legislation, which will mean we do not even get the opportunity to clean up Mr Shorten's mess, which, the trade union movement in agreement with the employer organisations believe should be cleaned up. They are on a unity ticket on this but Labor senators opposite, so absolutely committed to ensuring that no robust reporting conditions be applied to unions, will say, 'Bad luck brother and sister'—to use Senator Sterle's language in the union movement. You will have to cop these reporting conditions that will regrettably see shop stewards having to report what their spouse might be earning or what assets they have.

We as a coalition did not ventilate the activities of the Craig Thomsons of this world and the Michael Williamsons of this world or the other activities that are slowly being ventilated but—I have said this before and I will repeat it—the Fairfax Media and the ABC, surprisingly, exposed some of the scams that were operating. They simply asked the question: why shouldn't the honest trade union members, the honest trade union men and women of Australia be protected from all these scams that have now been uncovered and disclosed? Why should they not be protected?

It is interesting that, in all this, we do in fact have the support of such people as Paul Howes of the Australian Workers Union and of Chris Brown. Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson, who are both former presidents of the ACTU, who are both former ministers in a Labor government and who both have had a lifetime of commitment to their service to the trade union movement, see the need for the act of the trade union movement to be cleaned up. If they can see it, why cannot those that are currently holding office, courtesy of the trade union movement in this place, see it as well?

If ever there was a conflict of interest writ large it is in relation to those Labor senators in this place, who are, I understand, going to vote down this legislation.

It will be a matter of great regret if this legislation does not get carried. It is legislation that we put out there in lights before the election. We said it was important legislation. We therefore said it would be introduced within the first week of the parliament sitting because it was so important. Can I thank the departmental officials and the parliamentary draftspeople that worked so hard to make sure it was ready for the first week. And here we are in the Senate with Labor and Green senators denying the will of the Australian people, still in full resentment mode of what the Australian people decided on 7 September and in denial of that which their own party elders like Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean have said to them: 'This is basically good legislation. Let it go through and clean up the trade union movement.' Then in relation to the amendments that we are moving to the existing legislation, you do know, those sitting opposite, that those amendments are fundamentally required for the benefit of the trade union movement itself and employer organisations and you are wilfully blocking that and as a result making life exceptionally difficult for the administration of the trade union movement.

We can hear about the terrible things that occurred in a market garden in Western Australia. Can I simply say to Senator Sterle that the workplace relations legislation and framework in Australia has not changed over the past seven years. These things have happened under Labor's Fair Work regime. You cannot blame the coalition for the atrocities. If what Senator Sterle says is right, and I am willing to accept that, can I just remind those opposite that it has all occurred under their watch, under their legislation, under their regime. Bad as it is, condemned as it should be, I ask how does that relate to getting rid of corruption out of the trade union movement. It is completely and utterly unrelated but a desire to use up the time, because there is no argument against that fundamental proposition, which is, what is the moral difference, what is the material difference, between a company director ripping off shareholders and a union official ripping off members? Why shouldn't the penalty be the same? None of the Labor senators in their contributions have dealt with that issue in any way, shape or form.

We know we have got the arguments on our side, we know we have got the right on our side, we know we have got the people of Australia on our side. The regrettable fact is, and we recognise this, that the Labor Party and the Greens are not on the side of the people of Australia, on the moral side of this debate. I commend the bill to the Senate.