Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

In recent weeks, and for the final two weeks of Senate activity, it is an alphabet soup of business: ROC, ABCC, PPL, VET, 18C et cetera—the list goes on. Today, to give it its full title, it is about the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014. It is to hopefully improve that bill that I am co-sponsoring some vital amendments, with Senator Xenophon. We will have the chance to debate them later. I have told journos many times that I am pro worker and anti corruption—be it union corruption or corporate corruption.

In recent weeks, I have spent a lot of time with ministers, shadow ministers, union officials, including from the CFMEU, and other senators. I will be voting for the amended bill, if the planned amendments pass. To get to this position, I have read many proposed amendments. I have supported some, and I have rejected others. The opposition encouraged crossbenchers to work on amendments. I suspect the big picture—as Paul Keating would say—was to get this bill and the ABCC legislation watered down as much as possible so that if, in the end, they did get passed, they would be closer to a gelding than a stallion. This legislation has been a long time coming. It is time, I believe, for a full-time, independent regulator for this sector, which has been wracked with scandal, rather than the current body dealing with it part time. The union movement will only be strengthened if potential members can be confident that all of their leadership are working to benefit members, not to personally benefit themselves. I do not see this as an attack on unions. I see it as an effective way to improve the way that this sector is governed. No-one, including people within the union movement, wants to see a repeat of the Kathy Jackson or the Craig Thomson rorts. Kathy Jackson misappropriated $900,000 from the Health Services Union. Craig Thomson squandered $300,000 of union members' money—much of it on prostitutes.

In case anyone wanted to argue these horrors were a thing of the past, just remember that last week police arrested Derrick Belan. He was previously the New South Wales branch secretary of the National Union of Workers. Police also arrested his niece, Danielle O'Brien, who managed the union's accounts and audited his personal expenses. Belan has been charged with 24 fraud related offences totalling about $440,000. Police also charged him with participating in a criminal group. O'Brien is facing 148 fraud related offences totalling over $400,000. It is shocking. I wonder how anyone can argue, in the face of these events, that we do not need a specialised, properly-resourced organisation to deal with these matters.

One of the late Labor amendments is to get rid of a new sheriff and have ASIC play policeman. I have decided to vote against that. I have decided to vote against it because I think ASIC already has a volume of problems of its own, policing corporate crooks in an increasingly sophisticated world of company crime. My fear is that by dumping this area on ASIC, we would see it not get the scrutiny it deserved nor have the sophisticated, specialised nous that is required.

Then there are whistleblowers. Senator Xenophon and I are and will be, I believe, rightly proud of what could be the best whistleblower protection in the world. It would cover anonymity, compensation and protection. Even though it now deals specifically with unions, it must in the near future be extended with the same powers and the same protections to whistleblowers in the corporate sector. As my grandma used to say, 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.'

One of the amendments I am sponsoring, with the Xenophon team's support, concerns auditors. I must admit that when I was railing against that scumbag Craig Thomson on radio and television, I never thought that one day I could be in a legislative position to do something about such selfish, self-serving thieves. I will admit that in this case it is partly personal. When the stories started coming out about Craig Thomson spending $500 a time on hookers I was actually lying in a hospital bed, and watching members of his old union, the Health Services Union, doing menial tasks for about, I guess, $15 an hour. I remember that I watched a middle-aged European woman with a mop cleaning up after a burst colostomy bag. I thought at the time that her union fees for the year would probably be around the $500 that Thomson spent on one prostitute in one assignation. Maybe better auditing would have sprung people like Thomson, Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson, and it may have sprung them hundreds of thousands of dollars earlier.

So there it is—my support for this bill. These are some of the reasons I have come to the decisions I have. I know and understand that I will not please everybody, but I got to this position without making deals with either side. That is what I promised the people who elected me.