Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, on three separate occasions by the 44th Parliament. There may have been an earlier one that defeated it once. It is a little bit like groundhog day here—here we go again.

Some suggestions have been proposed—and again I do not want to go so far as overly foreshadowing amendments that may or may not be made in this chamber. There are proposals—that should be taken—that Labor outlined as part of our plan for better union governance that was announced in December 2015. It would provide: increased penalties but exempt volunteers, greater protection for whistleblowers, more accountability for auditors and more accountability for electoral donations by reducing disclosure amounts from $13,200 to $1,000. Rather than creating a new bureaucratic Registered Organisations Commission, Labor proposed that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission use its extensive coercive powers to investigate serious breaches of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act.

There are serious concerns about the nature of this legislation. The bill will establish the Registered Organisations Commission, which will be headed by the Registered Organisations Commissioner, who again will be hand-picked by this government. The bill modifies disclosure requirements. This bill actually increases red tape. It is fascinating to hear senators who have been such strong advocates of lessening government regulation, like Senator Paterson, arguing for what can only be described as another burdensome process being placed on none other than in many cases volunteers who are giving up their own time and their own effort to participate.

The bill contains higher penalties for civil contraventions and introduces criminal offences, as discussed earlier, but these sanctions are onerous. These sanctions are disproportionate. They are unfair. They prevent employers who volunteer to work for employer bodies from continuing that work. The bill treats volunteers like the chief executives of corporate boards, except without the pay and conditions.

Registered organisations and the role they play in our society should not be underestimated or ignored. They are created for the purpose of representing Australian employees and employees at work. But the important point is that a lot of these are organisations and positions that are held by volunteers, by people who give up their own time and their own resources and who choose to participate in these types of processes because they believe in the issues, the cause and the matters for which they are fighting. Registered organisations represent their members before industrial tribunals and courts and work with government on policy matters as wide-ranging as economic policy and social policy.

What concerns me is that the real agenda of the government is not in this case about strengthening the trade union movement. The real agenda with this legislation is to destroy and weaken the role of the trade unions within our society. The nature of this legislation goes to the heart of doing that by making it more difficult, more onerous and more challenging for volunteers to participate and be involved in these types of organisations. This legislation is nothing more than an attack on the rights of Australian workers to be properly represented and protected.

It is worth making the point that in the majority of submissions, from both employer and employee groups, to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee's inquiry into the previous iteration of this bill—again, this is not a new bill—were against the substantive measures outlined in the bill. I note that in an earlier inquiry the Ai Group, an organisation that is not known to be aligned with the Labor Party, said:

If the proposed criminal penalties and proposed massive financial penalties for breaches of duties are included in the RO Act, this would operate as a major disincentive to existing voluntary officers of registered organisations continuing in their roles, and would deter other people from holding office.

These are serious concerns.

Senator Paterson and others, especially from the government side, who have spoken about this bill tend to talk about the allegations of criminality, some of which are very serious cases of criminality. Unlawful behaviour, particularly criminal behaviour, by anyone should be met by the full force of the law. That should be the case whether the person is a banker or a union official. No-one should have any tolerance for those who steal from workers, whether that be corrupt union officials stealing members' money or employers underpaying their staff. In all cases, the taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable is reprehensible behaviour and should be called out for what it is. That is why we have an Australian Federal Police and state and territory police with the powers to investigate crimes. We even have the Australian Crime Commission, which has coercive powers and the power to investigate serious crimes. They are the appropriate, well-resourced, bodies to deal with these serious allegations. I am not of the view that simply creating another level of bureaucracy is going to achieve the outcome of improving this situation.

Labor supports strong and proportionate regulation of registered organisations. Proportionality in this scenario means that you have an appropriate response to the challenges being faced. That is why the Labor Party in 2012 proposed a series of reforms. We further updated those reforms in December 2015. They are reforms that have not been taken up by the government.

In 2012, the legislation that was put forward by the then minister for employment and now Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, in the other chamber, tripled penalties for breaches of the Fair Work Act. The legislation required that education and training about governance and accounting obligations be provided to officials of registered organisations and required the disclosure of officials' remuneration and pecuniary and financial interests. It also enhanced the investigative powers available to Fair Work Australia, including the power for the Fair Work Australia general manager to provide information to bodies such as federal or state police and other regulatory agencies, correcting a serious flaw in the regulatory regime introduced by a previous minister for workplace relations, Mr Tony Abbott. The legislation was supported by both employer and employee organisations. The regulation of trade unions as a result of these 2012 changes meant that we had a working body that had never been stronger. Accountability had never been higher, and the powers of the Fair Work Commission to investigate and prosecute for breaches had never been broader. Penalties were tripled, which means they had also never been tougher.

Look at how the government has carried on. Look at how the government behaves. If you look at how the government speaks and at the rhetoric it chooses to use in this space, you realise that what it says could not be further from the truth. The registered organisations act prohibits members' money from being used to favour particular candidates in internal elections or campaigns. The registered organisations act already allows for criminal proceedings to be initiated where funds are stolen or obtained by fraud, and the registered organisations act already ensures that the Fair Work Commission can share information with police—as is entirely appropriate. The registered organisations act already provides for statutory civil penalties where a party knowingly or recklessly contravenes an order and direction made by the Federal Court and the Fair Work Commission. Under the Fair Work Act, officers of registered organisations already have fiduciary duties akin to those of directors under the Corporations Law.

Labor has put forward a plan to strengthen the transparency and accountability of trade unions, and it is something that I feel this government should be looking at adopting. It is something that will actually have meaningful impact—improving the legislation and the procedures by which these matters are dealt with. What we have from the government, however, is nothing more than an ideologically-driven assault on the rights of workers to participate in the trade union movement and on the rights of workers—especially those who are volunteers—to engage and to have their role and their say. It is impossible to split the reality of where the government's agenda has been heading on this issue and what the government itself is saying.

I want to quickly run through what the government has been doing in some of these areas. When it comes to the protection of Australian workers, this government could not have done less on the real issue and on what is going on there. I find it disappointing that, on this Monday morning, the first issue of the day, the matter we are dealing with, is a registered organisations bill that has been rejected several times by this chamber in the past and that has no other purpose than to push an ideological agenda and an assault on good, hardworking Australians.

I was fortunate last week to participate in the Senate inquiry into matters related to the coal industry. The day before the inquiry I was fortunate to be able to travel to Hazelwood and meet with a group of workers who have been displaced or will be displaced as of May next year and to talk to these workers about the challenges that they face. Those are the matters that this chamber should be dealing with. Those are the matters that should be the top priority on our agenda. When we are seeing 750 workers who have lost their jobs, that should be the focus of this government. Instead, we have a government that has decided that the first piece of legislation on its agenda is going to be nothing other than an assault on the rights of workers and an attack on their ability to participate. The government is creating unnecessary legislation which will do nothing other than discourage volunteers and others from participating in these processes.

The proposals that were put forward by Labor at the end of last year, in December 2015, go to the heart of legitimate concerns that have been raised in this space. They go to the heart of the issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, we have not seen the government engage in serious amendments that can improve this legislation and have the possibility of being bipartisan. I am still hopeful there may be an opportunity to work out a bipartisan way of dealing with this issue. Unfortunately though, I am increasingly coming to the view that that is probably something that is not realistically going to happen.

The regulation we have placed on trade unions is serious; it is strong. But what we have here is assault after assault on trade unions; assault after assault on the rights of working Australians—and at a time when there are such challenges being faced with respect to the future of the Australian workforce and the future of Australian jobs, and with industry after industry being displaced. There is a disconnect in what is happening out there in the real world, in workplaces, in industries that are on the way out.

Rather than using our time in this chamber to discuss how we prepare our economy, how we prepare our workplaces and how we prepare our industry for the changes that will inevitably be taking place, here we are, with only two weeks to go, again talking about a piece of legislation that has been debated to death, that has been rejected on three separate occasions—rather than talking about the issues of what some of these workers are now facing. An incredible change is taking place in the Australian economy. Incredible changes are taking place when it comes to Australian jobs. The focus of the employment minister needs to be on how we futureproof our economy, how we make sure there are good, decent jobs for these Australians going forward. Instead, we have the rehashing of an old bill that has been dealt with before, that is being pushed by nothing other than a strong ideological agenda that will achieve nothing but discourage genuine, hardworking volunteers from being able to participate, to have their say and to be involved in these types of organisations.

Regarding the proposals that have been placed before us—and I want to speak to some of the crossbench senators here—an ideological agenda has been pushed in this chamber by the conservative side of politics for many, many years, and this is simply an extension of that. Think of all the volunteers in these organisations, the people who choose to give up their own time, their own resources. To hold volunteers, who are unpaid, to the standard of corporations without giving them the same type of remuneration or the same types of opportunities really will do nothing but weaken these organisations. I am proud of and like the idea that a lot of these registered organisations have real people—often, in the case of trade unions, off the tools—who work nine to five and who choose to participate because they want to have their say and they want to protect their industries. I think it will be a very worrying development if we head down the path where good, decent, hardworking Australians are excluded because of an ideological agenda that is being pushed as an assault on the trade union movement.

We have seen in blind quotes and comments that have been given that the government seems to view all this as 'good politics'. But it is bad policy, and that is why this bill, in its current form, should not be supported. (Time expired)