Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. It is no wonder in my view that the Labor leader is desperate to prevent the passage of this bill. Stopping this bill is what an elite would do. Let us recall what Mr Shorten's cronies had to say about this legislation. Labor's workplace relations spokesman Brendan O'Connor fulminated with confected indignation when this bill came before the House of Representatives. The member for Gorton said:

The opposition will not support a politically motivated witch-hunt designed to kill off unions …

Kill off unions? This is designed to strengthen unions and strengthen union members. The member for Gorton appears to think that financial transparency and accountability is a witch-hunt to kill off unions. That is hardly surprising, since his own brother Michael O'Connor is the CFMEU's national secretary and he has been charged with industrial offences. I would think that was something of a conflict of interest. In fact, protecting criminal activities by unions seems perhaps to be something that runs in the CFMEU's DNA. A family connection to the highest levels of the most corrupt and lawless union in the country hardly qualifies the member for Gorton to pronounce judgement on this bill. In fact, I think the vehement opposition of the likes of the CFMEU national secretary and his brother is the strongest recommendation for the registered organisations bill yet.

What else has been said by the cabal of Labor elites? When this bill was last in the Senate, my honourable colleague Senator Cameron claimed this bill was:

… about the coalition's obsession with destroying collective bargaining in this country. The bill—

said Senator Cameron—

is about the government introducing over-the-top regulation and red tape on the … union movement …

Well, how wrong can anyone be! In truth, this bill is only about destroying corrupt practices such as the stealing of union members' money by criminal and union bosses. Taking food from the tables of innocent workers and engorging the pay cheque and waistline of union bosses is abhorrent and unacceptable. So, does the senator still believe that these practices are so central to union operations that banning them will destroy the union movement? Apparently so.

Now some former Labor figures have recognised the necessity of this bill. As Senator Cash mentioned in question time two weeks ago, Paul Howes, Bill Shorten's successor at the AWU, said three years ago:

I can't see any reason why anyone in the [union] movement would fear having the same penalties that apply to company directors.

Former ACTU president Martin Ferguson stated:

There is an absolute obligation on the union movement to clean up its house.

Former Labor attorney-general Robert McClelland said there was 'unquestionably a case for further legislative reform'. Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty has been quoted previously as saying:

I was always on that side of the debate which said that unions are public bodies so they are accountable to members for their management—

they are accountable to members for their management.

These are reasonable and rational comments by honest advocates of the union movement. They highlight the case for a legal fiduciary obligation on union bosses to be implemented. All of these comments have come from the union movement itself.

No-one should ever expect to waltz through life unaccountable for spending other people's money. There is a legal expectation in every industry that other people's money, given in trust—given in trust—must be spent to benefit those people for whom one holds the money. A fiduciary obligation on union bosses to take care of their workers should be a natural occurrence, but, sadly, some union bosses have become negligent and lawless in their behaviours.

When a union boss is corrupt, their malfeasance results in a number of repercussions that ricochet throughout the entire economy. The first of these is the increased cost to consumers. Everyday Aussies pay more for products like construction, delivery of goods, manufactured items or delivery of public services, to give just a few examples. Further, the economy grinds to a halt as union bosses extort and seek to control workplaces, free from punishment by law. At will, they do it. Other effects of lawless union bosses seeking to control our economy include lower productivity, resistance to investment, lower employment and damaged export capacity.

One would think that the Labor Party today would be keen to support measures to identify and prosecute such flagrant and criminal breaches of the trust of rank-and-file union members; promote and support the economy; and increase industry. But no—in Shorten's Labor, theft and malfeasance is encouraged and flourishes unpunished, with complete abandon. All that today's Labor members and senators seem interested in doing is protecting the snouts in the trough of their union-boss cronies. And there I was thinking that unions were there to represent the interests of their members in an honest and transparent, accountable manner!

Bill Shorten promised to run Australia like he would run a union. That would surely mean theft of taxpayers' money, taking bribes to sell out our great nation, standover tactics, extortion reigning, extreme levels of control, and abuse if you do not do things Uncle Bill's way.