Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy President, I do appreciate that. It is interesting that they would distance themselves now from Paul Howes and say that he is not one of theirs, that he is no longer a senior union official, so it does not matter what he thinks on the matter. Well, they were happy for him to help knife the Prime Minister and they were happy for him to be a factional leader who no doubt supported a number of their preselections in this place. But if he agrees that wrongdoers should be brought to justice, well, he is no longer one of theirs; he is no longer in the labour movement. That is interesting. I certainly would not agree with Paul Howes on many things, but I would have thought he does have some authority to speak as a senior representative—now a former senior representative—of the Australian union movement. People like Paul Howes and Justice Anthony North say that something needs to be done. Justice Anthony North says that the penalties are too low, and Paul Howes says, 'I've got no problem with having better penalties, reasonable penalties, penalties that are more reflective of the seriousness of some of these offences.' Let's be clear: while not all registered organisations are large, many are. Many manage significant funds. So the potential for wrongdoing is serious and therefore the responsibilities are high. I think this is an absolute fig leaf.

Senator Bilyk was saying, 'This is just about an attack on the unions,' but then she contradicted herself by saying that it also applies to employer groups. So, if it were actually about attacking unions, why would it also include employer groups? Again, your argument very clearly falls down. In fact, your argument fell down as you were delivering it, as you contradicted yourself: it is all about unions, except it is also about employer groups. Well, it is actually about wrongdoers. It is about saying, 'If we can say to company directors that there will be serious fines and, in some cases, criminal prosecutions for serious wrongdoing as company directors, then why can't we say that to registered organisations? In many cases, they are very large organisations with large membership groups and large amounts of funds at their disposal. I would have thought that a reasonable person would look at this and say that that is reasonable—that those who do the right thing have nothing to fear and that those who do the wrong thing should have something to fear, and we should ensure that penalties are commensurate with the wrongdoing in particular cases.

Unfortunately, we do see examples where some organisations are out of control. I will give some examples. We saw eight days of unlawful industrial action by AMWU and CFMEU on a WA site—the Woodside LNG project—in 2008. CFMEU officials threatened to stop work at a Lend Lease site in Adelaide if the union flag was not flown: 'If you don't put it up there—' the union flag on the crane—'we'll bring back 10 brothers tomorrow and stop the job.' There were alleged threats of retaliatory, disruptive industrial action if a Darwin building firm did not give in to CFMEU demands. A WA unionist unlawfully told CFMEU union members to stop work five times at the Probuild construction site in Perth and unlawfully coerced a subcontractor to enter an enterprise agreement with workers. Just this year we saw a Western Australian union boss fined 35½ thousand dollars for bullying workers and threatening to have one contractor's workers thrown off every construction site they were on in Perth if they did not participate in a strike. There are some things I agree with Senator Bilyk on, and one of those things is that the majority of union officials are not in that category. But, unfortunately, we have serious examples of officials who absolutely do the wrong thing.

This legislation is about ensuring that we have law and order in all aspects of our community. Law and order should not stop at the worksite. It should not not apply on building sites, as we have seen in some cases around the country. That holds business back. That holds back the ability of business to be profitable and to employ more people—and in the end that hurts workers; that absolutely hurts workers.

If you are genuinely pro worker, then you would want to have a regime in place that discouraged the Craig Thomsons of the world from rorting union members' funds. You would want to have a regime in place that made it harder for another Michael Williamson. Those are two examples that absolutely appalled all of us. HSU members—hardworking union members and, in many cases, low paid—expect that as a result of paying their union dues they will get fair representation. I am not anti union. I was a member of a union when I worked as an employee of Woolworths. I was a member of the STA. There is nothing wrong with unions, in my opinion. They have a place. They have an important place. But, if individuals in registered organisations, be they employer groups or unions, do the wrong thing, they need to be held accountable. We need to have a robust framework that holds them to account so we can restore balance and fairness to the system.

Let us go to what the bill actually does—