Rex Patrick (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to take the opportunity to speak briefly on integrity issues relating to both workplace relations and the financial services sector. At the outset, I'd like to provide the Senate with some background on NXT's thinking on the somewhat inelegantly named Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill.

It was about two weeks ago that I met up with Minister Laundy in a quiet corner of an airport lounge. He walked into the meeting room, said, 'G'day,' introduced his advisers and got straight down to business. He was, I have to say, very focused. He spelt out his case as to why NXT should support the ensuring integrity bill. As senators would know, the bill has two primary purposes: the first is to introduce a disqualification regime and deregistration regime for union officials and unions, respectively; the second is a requirement for the unions to pass a public interest test in the event they want to amalgamate.

The minister provided me with a lengthy list of adverse judicial comments from the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court judges about the CFMEU and its officials—after yesterday, maybe I should say 'the former CFMEU'. The rap sheet is certainly disturbing. Judicial officers are normally reserved and careful in their commentary, but the comments were certainly shocking. Justice Jessup, of the Federal Court, labelled the CFMEU as 'notorious' and 'an embarrassment to the trade union movement'. Justice Vasta, of the Federal Circuit Court, has described the CFMEU as 'the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history'. He further observed:

It seems that the CFMEU feel that they can usurp parliament and that they can set the law in this country. There is no place for such an attitude in Australian society.

After discussing these issues with my colleagues, we decided to give in-principle support to the bill, subject to making sure that its provisions imposed, to the extent that it was possible, the same obligations on union officials and unions as the Corporations Law imposes upon company directors and companies.

Whilst we share the government's concern with industrial lawlessness, we are also concerned that considerations of justice, due process and proportionately should not be pushed aside in a campaign against a particular union, no matter how egregious the behaviour of its officials. This, I thought, would involve negotiating and watering down some of the provisions of the bill. But, as my advisers began work on possible measures to ensure parity between the treatment of lawless union officials and those guilty of misconduct in the corporate sector, stories from the banking royal commission started to roll in.

While I'm disturbed with the conduct of CFMEU officials, the emerging evidence before the banking royal commission has fuelled NXT's longstanding and strong concerns about ethics and integrity within the banking and financial services sector. Maybe many of the provisions that I thought harsh or overreach in the ensuring integrity bill in comparison to the Corporations Act are indeed appropriate in both legislative frameworks. I'm starting to think much of what I thought might need to be removed from the ensuring integrity bill might need to remain, provided that we see equivalent amendments to the Corporations Act.

The government would like to bring the hammer down on lawless union officials. But, if they are to be consistent, the hammer must come down on those responsible for the financial misconduct—if not outright fraud—that has ruined the finances and lives of so many Australians, including those engaged in small and family businesses. The banking royal commission stories have also reinforced my view on the absolute need to make sure whistleblowing in the banking world is highly protected and, indeed, encouraged through an appropriate bounty scheme. Without prejudice to Commissioner Hayne's eventual report, misconduct in the banking sector needs urgent attention. And action from government should not be entirely put on hold until the royal commission has wound up and finished its final report.

In conclusion, by way of general observation, both the government and the opposition all too often wear ideological and partisan blinkers. The Labor Party has turned a blind eye to the lawlessness of too many union officials, many of them influential within Labor's own ranks. At the same time, the Liberal Party established the royal commission only with the greatest reluctance and appears much more interested in conducting an anti-union jihad than dealing with misconduct and misrepresentation in the banking and financial services sector. I hope that one day both sides will adopt a more balanced approach. (Time expired)