Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 6 October this year there was an incident in my home state that shows that safety on a worksite is more than just a political plaything for those opposite. I can remember where I was when I received the news. I was travelling from Townsville to Mackay when they announced that two workers had been killed after being crushed by a 10-tonne concrete slab at Eagle Farm racecourse. Those two gentlemen were Ashley Morris, a 34-year-old, and Humberto Leite, who was 55. I pass on my condolences to their families and friends.

Media reports revealed that several workers walked off that job in the days before the deadly incident, with one worker quoted as saying, 'It is the first time in my working life that I have walked off a project.' A manager of the project has since been charged with two counts of manslaughter. In terms of the media reports of these deaths and what has occurred since, it sounds like a very, very tragic case. I will read part of the recent media report on the ABC news.

Two construction workers killed at Brisbane's Eagle Farm racecourse managed to escape one falling concrete wall only to be killed by a second, police have alleged, after the builder in charge of the site was arrested at the international airport.

Claudio D'Alessandro, 58, appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday on two counts of manslaughter, after being charged on Tuesday.

D'Alessandro was arrested at Brisbane international airport, where he was embarking on a spur-of-the moment, four-day holiday to the Philippines.

The report went on to say:

The court was told the men were helping to install a four-walled "foul water settling tank" consisting of four individual walls, each about four square metres and weighing about 10 tonnes.

The walls were lowered individually onto the floor with a crane, with the first three walls, once in place, being "tied" to each other across the top corner by use of adjustable temporary bracing.

…

A police affidavit stated that the men were working in a "pit" under D'Alessandro's instructions trying to lower the concrete walls when they began to collapse.

The pair managed to "ride down" one concrete slab as it fell but were crushed after the wall's failure caused a second slab to topple forward.

It sounds like a particularly horrific death for those poor workers. Again, my condolences go to their families and friends.

This was a shocking incident, which was made worse by the documents submitted in court showing that the deceased workers had actually raised significant concerns with their manager about the safety of the work they were doing in lowering the concrete panels into place. Yet those opposite want to reduce the ability of workers to raise these types of concerns, making it more difficult for unions to hold employers accountable for the safety concerns of their workers.

In light of incidents such as this, it is fairly remarkable that the government are still pushing the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill through in the same form it has been in since 2013. But I think this gives you an understanding of their motivation. This is just the latest plank in their attack on workers. The idea behind this bill, which was what the double dissolution election was fought on, had previously been rejected by this parliament a number of times. The rationale for the double dissolution was barely mentioned during the two-month campaign. It is really no wonder that their campaign was off the rails.

But here we are, almost five months later, and finally they are bringing this legislation into the Senate for debate. What we are seeing from the LNP government is a continued ideological attack on workers. We have already seen reports in the media over recent days that that attack is only just starting and that they are only going to push further and harder next year in a return to a Work Choices style environment. The difference is that they are doing it piece by piece these days, but the outcome is still the same. It is an attack on workers and it is one that Australians are waking up to.

It is also what we see from LNP governments across Australia. In my own state of Queensland we saw, on the election of the Campbell Newman government, a harsh antiworker agenda that targeted unions and did nothing for the workers of that state—and they are still paying the price for. This is an antiworker, anti-union agenda, and they are happy to pit the workers against other people in Australia and really play a divisive game in this country.

We already know what Senator Brandis thinks of his LNP colleagues in Queensland. But this is really following the LNP playbook that we have seen around Australia over a number of years. The mock outrage from the LNP about being on the side of the workers is really nonsense. The public are not buying it, and we will absolutely be exposing that, when we look at the examples that I have already given.

Whilst Labor are focused on listening to workers across the country, the LNP are focused on attacking them. This legislation is a great example of how badly the LNP government are faring. Whilst many people throughout Queensland are suffering economic uncertainty around high unemployment and high youth unemployment and uncertain future employment opportunities, in the last five months I have seen this firsthand in the time I have spent, particularly in regional Queensland. I have made trips to Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Gladstone over the last couple of months and I have had many meetings with communities, businesses and workers in that time. Not one person has mentioned the ABCC bill as being important in their lives. I think that the focus of those people is on the practical economic opportunities that they want to see in central and regional Queensland, where the future jobs are coming from, improving their local economy and particularly jobs for young people, because they really want to see the next generation of people growing up in regional Queensland getting the opportunity to stay and continue to work in those areas.

It is important to look at the motivations behind this bill and what is driving the LNP. Any resolution on this bill would only be a significant step forward for the government's anti-union, antiworker agenda. The government has said they will come back with further changes in terms of workplace relations laws that this government wants to pursue. It is part of an ideological crusade against workers.

We have all seen what happens when the coalition gets their way in the Senate. Their Work Choices agenda was a relentless ideological attack on working Australians. The Australian people clearly saw through this overreach and were happy to turf them out in 2007. It was through coordinated and effective campaigning that the union movement was able to oppose Work Choices, and those opposite have not forgotten. That is what happens when you try to take on blue-collar and white-collar Australians and attack their rights at work. Now they are trying to nobble these bodies who are best placed to oppose this antiworker agenda. If they can tie up these groups who represent employees in red tape, they can get more of their antiworker reforms through over the next couple of years.

I note that on three separate occasions the government has tried to get this bill through and three times it has failed. This is apparently one of the two bills that needed to be passed so urgently that they called for a double dissolution election. Only now, in late November, is the government bringing this back into the Senate. I also note that the Senate has hardly been overrun in the intervening months.

Last term we saw the absolute beat-up of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, conducted by Liberal Party supporter and partisan commissioner, Dyson Heydon. What has changed in this legislation as a result of a royal commission that went for 18 months—