Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Just to reiterate, we have dealt with a number of amendments—items (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (9), (11), (12) and (13)—on sheet 8143, and they were agreed to by the government. In hindsight, I think that the government's agreeing to these amendments demonstrates how badly this bill was drafted. Whereas we have no tolerance for corruption in any form, the bill is based on recommendations by Commissioner Heydon in the final report of a royal commission that was a public and political attack on the trade union movement. The final report of that royal commission was released more than 12 months ago, yet the Department of Employment has confirmed that there was no stakeholder consultation on the process of drafting the bill. I suppose if there had been some stakeholder consultation the concerns that were raised by the ACTU, the employer groups and the Law Council of Australia would have been considered by the minister. But, as is typical of this minister, anything that can be done to attack the trade union movement, diminish collective bargaining and weaken workers' access to proper advice and conditions on the job will be done.

The department first issued drafting instructions on 10 February 2017 and the bill was introduced on 22 March, so it took just a few weeks to draft this bill. What this has shown is that the minister has had to capitulate on so many of the amendments that we have put forward. This was an inadequate process. There are still problems in the way in which the offences have been drafted, and the AI Group have said that some important changes are needed to the bill to ensure fairness to employers, employees, registered organisations, officers of registered organisations and employees of registered organisations. Given the flaws in the bill identified by both employer and employee representatives, Labor is proposing a reasonable package of improvements. None of them could be said to thwart the intention of the bill or render the offences impotent. On the other hand, they do address some of the overreach, whether intentional or not, in the drafting of the offences, which have potentially significant consequence for both unions and employers.

I just want to take the opportunity to have a look at this government's position on alleged corruption within the trade union movement and consider it against the blind eye that they turn to corruption in a range of areas, particularly in business. You know, we've had offshore-bribery allegations against some of the biggest companies in Australia. Do you ever hear that lot over there, that rabble of a government, get up and take any umbrage about those issues? No, you don't hear any speeches about that, but you hear speech after speech after speech against the union movement in this country, designed to try to diminish the union movement's capacity to operate effectively for its membership. Offshore bribery is an international offence and it's got huge implications for companies in this country and huge implications for our economy. If some of these companies get banned from operating internationally, you watch the job losses; you watch the problems that will be identified.

We had the Panama papers from Mossack Fonseca, where Australians were named about moving money offshore for illegitimate purposes. Did we hear any speeches from this rabble of a government? No, we don't hear anything about that. We've got multinational corporate profit shifting—shifting their profits overseas to minimise tax payments in this country. It gets hardly any attention from this government. We have banks behaving badly, banks behaving illegally, and banks ripping off ordinary Australians. I have to concede that Senator Williams has been consistent in his position in relation to banks. But do you ever hear much from the coalition itself on the issue of banks? No. Why won't they have a royal commission? Senator Williams knows why there should be a royal commission. We understand why there should be a royal commission.