Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this debate on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014. Well how far we have come and how little has changed! The government still persists with its agenda of shackling unions, making it difficult for people to secure representation and attacking working conditions for millions of Australians. In March 2013 I spoke in this place against a private senator's bill from Senator Abetz that was not too dissimilar to the one in front of us today. In that speech I emphasised Labor's belief that officers of registered organisations or anyone in a position of trust who misuses the funds of members, who acts inappropriately or who takes benefits that they are not entitled to must never be condoned.

Less than a year later, in May 2014, I spoke again to address a government bill that continued on the same failed lines as Senator Abetz's doomed private senator's bill. We all know that this bill was also rejected. It did not have the support of registered organisations, it did not have the support of industry groups and, unsurprisingly, it failed to gain the support of the Senate. Yet here we are again today looking at another slightly mutated clone that Labor still cannot support.

Government members continue to bring up the HSU case as evidence that there is something fundamentally, systematically wrong with how registered organisations operate in this country and the laws surrounding them. Ironically, it is this very case that illustrates that the system is working. In this case the Fair Work Commission collected evidence and the courts gave their verdict. Due process was used to carefully consider the evidence, a decision was made and punishment was meted out appropriately. The system worked as it should have. Nothing in this bill before us today would stop people committing fraud, despite what those opposite continue to assert.

As I mentioned earlier, Labor support appropriate regulation for registered organisations, including a properly empowered regulator and consequences for those who do not follow the rules. We are committed to ensuring that unions and employer organisations are accountable, but that is not what this bill is about. This legislation is clearly little more than a spiteful witch-hunt and simply another way to weaken the rights of working people and their unions. Twice now we have seen so little support for the government's plan to weaken registered organisations and twice we have seen condemnation of this policy, yet here we are with a bill with the same intentions as the two that preceded it to weaken unions.

Even with the proposed amendments there are still significant concerns with the bill. It still exceeds penalties in the Corporations Act 2001 and in doing so breaks a fundamental promise that the government made to the Australian people before the election. The government promised to regulate registered organisations in the same way as corporations. This bill does not do that. The reality is that this government is so blinded by its anti-union agenda it has been unable to recognise that this is a fundamentally flawed policy. It is a policy that will not strengthen the system.

When the predecessor of this bill went before the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee it became clear how flawed it was. It was criticised by employer groups and trade unions alike, something that does not happen too often. The Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation pointed out that the bill:

… is unnecessary, poorly structured and excessive, particularly when the Parliament in 2012 enacted the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Act 2012 that largely and adequately dealt with the same issues by introducing enhanced reporting and financial management standards.

Similarly the Ai Group said:

The Bill would impose a far more onerous regime for officers of registered organisations than what applies to directors of public companies.

It became clear that the bill presented an ineffective solution to an ill-defined problem that actually flew in the face of the government's own promise of red tape reduction.

Today I stand before you as a former state secretary of a trade union—the Tasmanian branch of the AMWU. I am proud to put that on the record—my experience as a union member, an organiser and a secretary. I do so with the benefit of firsthand experience of how unions deliver real outcomes for working Australians. There is no doubt that registered organisations play a fundamental role in Australia's workplace relations system. They are created and registered for the purpose of representing Australian employers and employees at work. They are a fundamental mechanism to ensure that our workplace relations system strikes a fair balance between the rights of workers and the interests of their employers.

As I said earlier, there is no doubt that the bill before us today has nothing to do with strengthening union governance, despite what Senator Abetz has asserted. Those opposite love nothing more than to demonise and demean unions and those who support them. They like to use emotionally laden terms like 'union thugs' and 'heavies' to demean union workers and smear the reputations of the vast majority of honest, hardworking union representatives. What they do not want people to know is how strong the current regulations for registered organisations already are.

The truth is that the registered organisations act already allows for criminal proceedings to be initiated where funds are stolen or are obtained by fraud. It already ensures that the Fair Work Commission can share information with the police as appropriate. Not only that but the same act already provides for statutory civil penalties where a party knowingly or recklessly convenes an order or direction made by the Federal Court or the Fair Work Commission under the registered organisations act or the Fair Work Act.

Under the Fair Work Act officers of registered organisations already have fiduciary duties similar to those for directors under the Corporations Law. The registered organisations act already requires officers to disclose their personal interests. The registered organisations act already requires officers to disclose when payments are made to related parties. The registered organisations act already requires officers to exercise care and diligence, act with good faith and not improperly use their position for a political advantage.

Clearly, this bill is not about better governance and accountability, as we already have that, and self-evidently it is not about fixing a broken system. The sole purpose of this bill is to hit registered organisations hard and to make it highly unappealing for honest volunteers to play their part in the governance of their union or their organisation for the betterment of its members. This bill would make volunteering on the board of a union or employer organisation such a risky proposition that registered organisations would find it hard to fill these positions. It sets out to remove the necessary ingredient for effective functioning of volunteer organisations—that is, their volunteers. This bill wants to use the improper and fraudulent actions of one or two officials to fundamentally weaken all trade unions into the future.

On this side, we believe in fairness in employment and in industrial relations. We believe in an appropriate balance that helps business to be profitable and productive, while ensuring a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. When Labor was in government it delivered positive reforms—not penalise over two million Australians and their families—because it wanted to unite and negotiate collectively for reasonable conditions. In fact, in 2012, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, as minister, strengthened the laws to increase financial transparency and disclosure by registered organisations to their members. As a result, today, we have regulation of trade unions that has never been stronger, accountability that has never been higher and the powers of the Fair Work Commission to investigate and prosecute for breaches that have never been broader. Not only that, Labor tripled the penalties for breaches, which means they have never been tougher.

When I spoke on this bill last year, I talked about the importance of a union and the importance of acceptance of unions for some female workers in a George Town factory, in my home state of Tasmania, a number of years ago. It is a story that shows how important unions are in providing a voice for working Australians; it is a story that highlights the need for representation when there is a power imbalance in the workplace, a toxic culture or an unscrupulous employer; and it is a story that is just as relevant today. I will share it again for those who were not here listening.

It was a small fishery and processing facility. I, as a union organiser, was asked by some of the staff to visit and talk with the workers. When we approached management they were helpful. They invited us in, gathered the workers in the lunch room and made us feel welcome. The workers at the processing facility were mainly women, all of them casually employed. The few men in the workplace were all permanent. With permanency came security, but it also bred an attitude of superiority. We spoke to the staff about joining the union and people seemed positive. We left some information and told them we would come back the next week. We thought we had had a good hearing and that we would be able to offer support to the workers.

Unfortunately—and many people listening will know where this story is going—when we left, the boss got everyone together in the lunch room and said that if they joined the union they would lose their jobs. Two women, who were silent members of the union, called and told us what had happened. They were worried for their jobs. A week later, we went back to the factory and talked to the people again. This time, publicly, no-one was interested. However, the silent members called again and arranged for us to meet with a group of workers.

We met with the women at one of their houses. They told us what had been going on in their workplace: bad behaviour toward the female workers by the men. Some acts might have been perceived as harmless by some, but many other acts a reasonable person would frame as assault and dangerous. The workers would hose down the facilities at the end of the day. One day one of the men was cleaning down in his underwear. He repeatedly turned the hose on the women, who were just going about their jobs, spraying them with a high-powered hose. It was harassment; it could be viewed as assault; it was certainly dangerous.

There were other cases where some of the men would force themselves into a bathroom cubicle in the unisex toilets while one of the women was in there. It was clearly designed to intimidate the female workers. One day, it got out of hand. One of the men forced his way into the cubicle. The woman was able to fight him off, but she was left with visible bruising on her arms. She told me that she spoke to her husband when she got home that night, who was at first angry and wanted the man to be punished. His second reaction was, 'But you have to go to work tomorrow because we need the money.'

This woman, this family and all of these workers had no choice but to put up with the behaviour. We asked them, 'Why didn't you raise these matters with the supervisor?' They replied, 'We couldn't. He was one of the men involved.' They had no recourse on their own, but they wanted to join the union. They wanted to join the union so that together they could make a change at their workplace. So we set up a picket outside the factory. We went to the Industrial Relations Commission, where we were able to run an argument for these women and lay down the facts.

The commissioner found that there was clear evidence that the workers wanted to join a union, that they had been discriminated against and that they should be protected. The commissioner enforced a code of conduct for the factory management and gave the female workers, in particular, comfort that there were avenues for recourse if they needed to go down that path in the future.

Clearly, many staff at this George Town workplace were not able to walk into their boss's office, raise issues of concern and receive a fair hearing. Sadly, this is still the case in so many workplaces today. Unions give workers the means to join together to give themselves some bargaining power in circumstances where there are serious power imbalances. If there had been a union at this factory providing a mechanism for the workers to raise issues and to be listened to fairly, these issues may not have happened at all.

What will this bill do for people like those factory workers in George Town? It will do nothing. It is not designed to help them. In fact, it is designed to disempower working Australians and make it harder for unions to provide assistance. As with so many of the policies of those opposite, it is the most vulnerable who will suffer. It is those whose employment is the least secure, it is those who have limited opportunities in a tough marketplace and it is those whose jobs could be at risk if they spoke out on their own.

I repeat: this bill will not help these people. When those opposite speak in favour of this bill, they ignore these stories, these real-life stories of working Australians. Despite their empty rhetoric, the Liberal government does not seek a middle ground—their so-called sensible centre. No, they seek to rid the country of unions as a favour to their big-business friends.

As I mentioned earlier, the legislation governing registered organisations already requires officers to act with care and diligence, to act in good faith, to not improperly use their positions and to not improperly use information they have obtained through acting as a member of an organisation. (Time expired)