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

I rise today to speak against the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017. As we have heard a number of times already this morning, this bill is being rushed through the parliament in record time, despite the fact that last year we spent many late nights in this place debating elements of this legislation at length. We even went to an extraordinary double dissolution election on this precise issue. So, despite the fact that the parliament debated this legislation for hours upon hours, thrashed it out and amended it, with the Senate having reached a point a compromise, we now hear that, because big business mates have got in the ears of Senator Hinch and Senator Xenophon, an extraordinarily fast-tracked amendment bill was rushed through the House yesterday. The debate was gagged in the House yesterday and the bill was sent straight to the Senate to be ticked off and rubber-stamped.

The truth of the matter is that this bill is all about doing the bidding of big business. That is what is going on here. Despite hours and days and weeks and months of negotiation to try to put some protections for workers into the ABCC legislation, we knew the government did not want to do that; we knew business did not want to do that. Despite getting promises from a number of people on the crossbench that those protections would be there, four months later the government have gone weak at the knees. They have rolled over. Someone—heaven knows who—has tickled the tummies of both Senator Xenophon and Senator Hinch. So, rather than sticking by what they said—that they would give Australian workers, business and workplaces the opportunity to understand what these new rules would mean and to renegotiate in a timely and reasonable manner—we now see that grace period being scrapped. Big business never wanted that grace period there in the beginning. Tony Abbott, who we know is still pulling the strings in the party room—