James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome that. The legislation also introduces higher civil penalties and a range of criminal penalties for organisations and officials who are found by courts to have done the wrong thing—for example, civil penalties ranging from $18,000 to $216,000 for individuals and up to $1,080,000 for a body corporate and criminal penalties for reckless or intentional dishonest breaches of an officers duties of up to $360,000 or five years imprisonment or both.

I would like to talk about some of the events which led the government to form the view that this was a necessary measure. This is not something that the government decided to do on a whim or without any evidence. It is something that the government has done in response to major incidents of defrauding of union members' funds and the misuse of union officials' powers. Here are some examples, and it is important to note for the record that this applies to a range of unions, not just a handful. It applies to a range of union officials, not just a couple of bad apples. And it is not ancient history. Many of these incidents are current. Indeed, there is a case in the courts this very week relating to the National Union of Workers and an alleged fraud of up to $400,000 of union members' money. This is not ancient history; these are current issues facing union members and unions across the country.

For example, TWU officials spent more than $300,000 purchasing modified American utes, which were used for personal purposes. One official even attached personalised number plates to his ute. Another official had the union's redundancy policy redrafted so that he could take his car with him once he left the union, which happened not very long after the purchase of that truck. National Union of Workers officials and staff have used members' funds on dating websites, sports tickets, toys and holidays. NUW officials and staff used corporate cards and credit cards to buy holidays worth more than $18,000, sports tickets worth more than $4,000, toys worth more than $670, dating website services worth more than $2,200, hairdressing and iTunes purchases worth more than $1,500, and other personal purchases.

Back to our friends at the Transport Workers Union. We had assistant secretary John Berger as the Tasmanian superannuation liaison officer for TWUSUPER from 2009 to 2012. He was also an employee of the TWU at that time. In the 2011-12 financial year, Berger spent only five days in Tasmania, with half of his time devoted to his duties on behalf of TWUSUPER. The TWU then billed the superannuation fund $93,434 for his work in that financial year. That is a pretty spectacular rate of pay. Senator Cameron was very concerned about Wall Street rates of pay, but I think we should be looking very closely at Tasmanian rates of pay on that hourly basis. There would be many Wall Street traders who would be envious of that kind of remuneration. This invoiced amount covered exactly half of Berger's total annual salary. He reluctantly agreed with Jeremy Stoljar SC during the union's royal commission that, on the math, the invoice that was put in claims $93,000 for 2½ days' work. Obviously a very productive union official.

Another matter that senators may be aware of is that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign director's wages were paid by a construction company—obviously a very kind and considerate construction company. Mr Shorten accepted a $40,000 donation from one of the companies negotiating a pay deal with the Australian Workers Union, Unibilt, at the time he was the Australian Workers Union national secretary and campaigning to become a member of parliament. The donation was used to pay the wages of Shorten's campaign staffer in 2007, but was not disclosed until two days before the royal commission asked him about these matters in sworn evidence—quite a number of years later, as senators will be aware.

One final example: the Australian Workers Union—again—was identified as being engaged in issuing false invoices. The royal commission heard that Cesar Melhem, a member of the upper house in state parliament and a Labor MP, repeatedly issued false invoices to companies marked as 'training', 'occupational health and safety' or similar when in fact they were actually payments for union membership in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Australian Workers Union membership roll contained the names of workers as well as horseracing jockeys who had never agreed to become members of the union.

These are just a handful of examples. This is just a snapshot of the many instances in which union officials have engaged in untoward conduct, where union members' money has been spent misspent. We have not even spoken so far today about the Health Services Union and the spectacular misuse of members' funds that occurred there under the stewardship of a previous member of the other place, but I have no doubt that other senators will contribute some details about that case later on in the debate.

It is very clear that union members have been taken for a ride by union officials for far too long, and it has fallen on this government to take action to address it. It should not require a coalition government to address this. The previous Labor government was confronted with a very similar set of facts and could have taken measures to address this, but it chose not to. Instead, it chose to side with union officials over union members, and that is something that this government will not do. I commend the bill to the Senate.