Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak to the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation and put on record my opposition to it, along with that of my fellow Greens colleagues—a number of whom have already spoken about the legislation. We need to be absolutely up-front right from the get-go. This legislation is designed simply as a union bashing exercise. It was the baby of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and you have to wonder what on earth is going on in the current Prime Minister's office when he continues to skip and whistle to the tune of Tony Abbott week after week, despite the fact that Tony Abbott, one of the most unpopular prime ministers the country has ever seen, was booted out a year ago—was dumped by his own colleagues. Now he stands in the shadows puppeteering every action of Prime Minister Turnbull. This legislation is one of the best examples of that.

This legislation is the whole reason that we went to an extraordinary election earlier this year—the double dissolution election—and the infamous eight-week election campaign. It was to give the Prime Minister the numbers that he would need in order to pass this bill. He did not get them. Even in his own perhaps frayed wisdom he realised that the Australian people were not going to be voting for a Prime Minister on the basis of a public campaign against some of the hardest working members of our workforce in the country—our building and construction workers. Every day they are out there on building sites; every day they are working hard to make sure that Australians have homes and that there are buildings for people to work in, and they do so under extremely difficult circumstances. In fact, fatality rates in relation to construction workers soared, sadly, last time the ABCC existed. There were more deaths on building sites when the last piece of legislation was enacted that made it more difficult for unions to represent workers to ensure that workplaces were safe and to give individual workers the protection to stick their head up and say, 'Hang on, I'm not going to do that, because that's unsafe.' It is extraordinary that the spike in the death rate on working sites correlated so clearly with the last introduction of the ABCC—you would wonder why any government would want to do that again. But this government is obsessed—absolutely obsessed—with union bashing. That is what all of this is about. It is being fanned by some of the more ultra-right members of the crossbench, who are seeing this as a brilliant opportunity for them to use this desperation from the government as their bargaining chip to get their agendas up.

I want to go to the issues relating to Senator Leyonhjelm, who has been out crowing for the last week about the list he has demanded from the government in order to secure his vote for the ABCC legislation. It is an ever-growing list. We even had more things added to it this morning. Firstly, I want to point out how extraordinary the reports are in relation to the Prime Minister declaring and demanding that his own Liberal Party administration drop the legal challenge to Senator Leyonhjelm and his party, the Liberal Democrats, over the use of the name. The Prime Minister himself has requested that the Liberal Party of Australia stop their legal challenge and withdraw from the courts, in order to satisfy Senator Leyonhjelm. If that is not an inducement, what is? This government is so desperate to get this legislation through that they are now willing to, effectively, not just trade on their name but give their name away—sell their own name in order to secure a vote for this piece of legislation. It is extraordinary. If we had a federal anti-corruption body like an ICAC in this country, that is exactly the type of thing that would be referred to it. How on earth can a Prime Minister put an inducement like that on the table and nobody bats an eyelid? It is extraordinary.

We know that Senator Leyonhjelm's shopping list is growing longer day by day. Today, we heard about his obsession with attacking and beating up the ABC and SBS broadcasters—they are now in Senator Leyonhjelm's firing line. He did not get the importation of the Adler and more firearms into the country, so he has decided to have a go at shooting the ABC and SBS. What an extraordinary precedent for this Prime Minister and his frontbench to suggest that our national broadcasters can become bargaining chips in this type of policy and vote negotiation only minutes before midnight. It is extraordinary. It sets a very dangerous precedent.

At a time when journalism is under pressure in this country, when we need robust, independent, well-funded journalism more than ever to scrutinise the government of the day and other interested groups and when the ABC and SBS in this country are held so dearly in the hearts and minds of the Australian people we see the Prime Minister so desperate to get his Tony Abbott legislation through this chamber that he is going to trade away the rights and protections for the ABC. I do not know exactly what the deals are—none of us do, and that is precisely the point. We do not know the details of these deals but we do know that Prime Minister Turnbull and his ministers are prepared to sell anything in order to get this legislation through this place before Christmas. It sets a very dangerous precedent.

We know that the ABC and SBS need to be strengthened and funded properly. We need them more than ever when we have such alarmist and crazy propositions being promoted by the ultraright wing in this country. The last thing we want is these public institutions caught up in the clutches of the ultraright in this place and on the crossbench. It sets a very dangerous precedent. While we have Senator Leyonhjelm negotiating this you can bet your bottom dollar that Senator 'Wackiest', also known as Senator Roberts, will be looking at this and taking inspiration from this—