Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to strongly oppose the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013. Over the course of this debate and, in fact, over the last three years, as this government has pursued their ideological agenda to cripple trade unions in this country, we have heard a lot from the government about why these bills are allegedly necessary. We have heard that they are the key to unlocking productivity in the construction sector and the economy more broadly. We have heard that they will drive down industrial disputes. We might as well have heard that they would cause world peace! You would think that every problem in the world is going to be solved by the passage of these two bills, when in fact what they really are this government's only agenda for this country—their ideological crusade to cripple the trade union movement, which will undoubtedly further entrench inequality in our society.

These bills will not help the economy one iota. They will not help the community and they will not help working people. Instead, they are just a cynical, politically-motivated attack on hardworking Australians that will, tragically, put construction workers' lives at risk. These bills are a continuation of the $80 million political witch-hunt established by the then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, in the form of the Heydon royal commission. That was the failed royal commission that has resulted in prosecution after prosecution falling over for lack of evidence. That royal commission, as we would all be familiar, was going to expose what was alleged to be endemic corruption within the trade union movement. It was going to line up all sorts of prosecutions of people within the trade union movement. To date, to my knowledge, it has resulted in an only one conviction and led to prosecution after prosecution falling over for lack of evidence.

Time and time again we see this Liberal Party government using taxpayers' money to pursue their own agenda to support their mates from the big end of town and appease their backbench. This is just like their $50 billion company tax cut, which will not deliver jobs and growth to ordinary Australians but will deliver a windfall gain to multinational corporations, who do not need a leg-up from the Australian people. Similarly, the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, has been pursuing his own agenda—and the Liberal Party's own agenda—through the $150 million plebiscite on marriage equality. We know that the only reason that is being done is to appease his backbench.

This government likes to moan about not having any money, about deficits—while, of course, the deficit is rising under their leadership—but they always find the money to deliver to their mates at the top end of town, with a company tax cut, a political witch-hunt in the guise of a royal commission and with things like a wasteful, divisive plebiscite. So I am proud to stand against this ideologically-driven government and these ideologically-driven bills, and I will oppose the changes to legislation, which are proposed here, that will seriously harm the economy and working people.

It is ironic that we should be talking about bills that are attempting to cripple the union movement because, if there is one organisation that would benefit from collectivism and sticking together, it is this very government. Instead, this government is completely divided. Last week we saw the ongoing civil war that is the federal Liberal party room come to Queensland. Senator Brandis was caught on camera calling his Queensland state colleagues very, very mediocre. Within an hour, the Queensland LNP member for Ryan, Ms Jane Prentice, was on Brisbane radio asking people to look at Senator Brandis's own performance and then later that very day every single Queensland National Party senator refused to support the Prime Minister's gun laws. Even just last night, we had former Prime Minister Tony Abbott yet again begging for a return to the front bench while, at the very same time, digging the knife further into his replacement, the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull.

Who could ignore the war that Senator Cash, the Minister for Employment, seems to be waging against her own LNP staff members in their ongoing enterprise bargaining dispute? If only there were some sort of organising body that those staff members could join that could advocate on their behalf. Of course, there is such a body, and that body is the trade union movement of Australia. Trade unions are terribly important to our society and to our democracy. They are the single biggest roadblock to the deepening inequality we are seeing in our society.

What a joke to see the government try to portray themselves as the defenders of working people. They would like to think that we have not been witness to their repeated attempts to undermine and dismantle trade unions and workplace protections that apply to everyday Australians. They would like to think that we were not witness to their disgraceful introduction of Work Choices under the Howard government—one of the largest and most ruthlessly coordinated attacks that we have ever seen on Australian working families. Of course, the government do not just attack the rights of working people and working Australians via their workplace rights. At the very same time, they impose cut after cut on social security benefits and services like education and health. In every part of their agenda—whether it be these kinds of bills to take away workplace rights or whether it be their other legislative proposals around social security benefits, health and education cuts—they are absolutely unforgiving in taking away the rights and entitlements of Australians, which have been hard won over generations.

So the government are not the protector of Australian workers. They never have been and they never will be. They do not speak for workers or their families, and they do not represent them. In fact, they do the very opposite by taking away rights and entitlements that have been won over generations.

I hate to break it to the government, but it was not them that gave Australians rights within the workplace. It was trade unions and Labor governments working together to ensure that the average working person does have some rights, does have some ability to stand up for their own pay and conditions, and does have the right to combine with other people that they work with to take on the power that their employer might have. Unions and Labor governments continue to play a pivotal role in advocating for the rights of Australians within the workplace.

Even now, unions are pushing for paid domestic violence leave so that victims of domestic violence can take leave to attend court hearings, to move house to escape a dangerous situation, and to attend medical and psychologist appointments. It would be good for the government to recognise the need for those kinds of rights in its own enterprise bargaining with its own employees.

Just last week, this government took its first step in its antiworker agenda when, without notice, it suspended standing orders to push through the registered organisations legislation in the dead of night. This, of course, was one of those bills that were held up as the reason that we needed to have a double dissolution election. Then we promptly never heard anything about it again through the election campaign. But, finally, this government pushed that legislation through in the dead of night. And what a triumph it considered that to be! I suppose if I were in the most unproductive government that Australia has ever seen, I would be pretty thrilled to pass a bill as well! Not that long ago, when Labor was in power, passing legislation used to be simply called governing. That was the daily business of government. But this government is so unproductive, so divided and so hapless that merely passing a bill is something that it considers worthy of celebration.

Now, in the following week, the government has decided to move on to the second step in this package of unfair and antidemocratic bills, through what has become known as the ABCC bill. This is just another unjustified attempt by this government to demonise Australian workers and dismantle the trade union movement that protects them. Unfortunately, it seems that this government has learnt absolutely nothing from the election, which saw it just squeeze back into government after launching a range of policies that were going to hurt everyday Australians. Unfortunately for this government, everyday Australians are not interested in policies that attack everyday people, and that is what this bill will do.

One of the government's main excuses for why it says we need the ABCC back is that it will improve productivity on construction sites. But, sadly for this government, the evidence is very clear on this front and it completely contradicts what the government argues. We do not need to just rely on modelling, theories or speculation about what will happen under the ABCC. We can turn to recent history, because it was not that long ago that the Howard government introduced the ABCC. The proof is in the pudding there about what actually happens in construction workplaces when this kind of authority is brought into existence. When we look back at what happened last time we had the ABCC, the facts are indisputable. They show that, without doubt, reintroducing the ABCC will be an absolute jobs killer. Again, this is an example of the Turnbull government putting its own ideological antiunion agenda above productivity and above economic growth that all Australians can share in.

This government has been caught out misrepresenting the supposed improved productivity that the ABCC will generate. The Prime Minister has claimed on occasions that ABCC, when it was introduced last time, improved productivity by 20 per cent. But journalists such as Bernard Keane have pointed out that there is no source that can be found to explain this alleged 20 per cent rise in productivity that apparently occurred the last time we had an ABCC. This statistic has been called out as being wildly inaccurate, but nevertheless the government insists on continuing to use outdated and wildly discredited data to push their agenda.

The government continues to cite a report published by Independent Economics, formerly Econtech, which claimed that the impact of workplaces practices, including the ABCC last time around, on productivity was an improvement of 9.4 per cent. As we know from this government, it does not let facts get in the way of a good yarn. On this occasion, again, its facts do not really stack up. It is not just me saying this. Former Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox said of the 2007 Econtech report that the government relies on 'is deeply flawed and it should be widely discredited,' yet this government continues to wheel out this figure as an argument for why we need the ABCC back. But, of course, we do have an institution within government that is fairly reliable when it comes to statistics. It is not a reliable when it comes to running a census, but on the provision of statistics like workplace—