Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Labor opposes the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013. These bills have serious negative impacts on the human rights of Australian citizens. The bills infringe a wide range of common-law rights and privileges, including the right to silence—maybe the senators over on the other side should have some silence now and again—the right to freedom from retrospective laws, and equality of treatment before the law, and they reverse the onus of proof on a person under investigation. These are bad bills.