Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the suspension of standing orders that the Leader of the Government in the Senate has moved, let's be clear what we are voting on right now. The government is moving this motion so that it can ram through its extreme anti-worker legislation. That's what's happening. This bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019, doesn't apply to business, it doesn't apply to the banks, it doesn't apply to Angus Taylor and it doesn't apply to Senator Cash; it only applies to working people and their representatives. It is an all-out assault on workers' ability to organise, run their own union and determine who leads them. It is an attack on nurses, midwives, teachers, police officers and their representatives.

This bill is called the 'ensuring integrity bill', but do you know what it is? It is just like Work Choices. I was here for the Work Choices legislation, and you lot haven't changed since then! You couldn't care less about integrity. You want to hide information from the people of Australia. You're a government that is loose with the truth—and I tell you what: oh boy, are you a government that doesn't like scrutiny!

We've seen Angus Taylor, who has blocked FOI access to 200 documents and refused to answer questions. If you were serious about integrity, we might have some legislation for a national integrity commission. But no. We've got a motion on this bill.

What about the banking royal commission? Last year big banks made billions of dollars from ordinary Australians by routinely breaching the law, but you're not here today to crack down on lawlessness in the banks. You're not here to implement the recommendations of the royal commission. In fact, after 299 days you've implemented six out of 76 recommendations of the royal commission you were dragged kicking and screaming to support. In fact, this government, which talks about integrity, is trying to ram through antiworker legislation in a week when it was revealed that Westpac breached Australian money-laundering laws 23 million times and failed to act on customers using its services to purchase child exploitation materials. But is this your priority? No. You know what the Prime Minister says? He says that lawlessness—23 million breaches of the law and abetting child abusers—is a matter for the board. But you want to use this chamber and the parliament of Australia to expedite a bill that could deregister unions representing midwives, flight attendants and firefighters for three paperwork breaches.

You lot haven't changed since we debated Work Choices in here. It's the same antiworker ideology and the same attack on working conditions. This was confirmed today when Senator Payne refused to rule out a watering-down of unfair dismissal laws and of the better off overall test. That really should demonstrate to everybody what this bill, which is being rammed through as a consequence of this motion, is all about. It is all about trying to take out the union movement so you can go after working people and their conditions, and out of the mouth of the Prime Minister and Minister Payne we heard that today.

Let's not forget that this government is trying to ram through antiworker legislation in a week when it was revealed that one in five workers in the construction, healthcare, retail, accommodation and food services industries has been a victim of wage theft. But are you going to do something about that and about the $1.35 billion in workers' wages underpaid each year? No, you want to attack the organisations that help people get this money back. They're your priority. It says everything about this government and the Liberal Party that the passage of this antiworker bill is your No. 1 priority. This is a government with no plans and no principles. The only thing they are united on, the only thing they are capable of, is a relentless political attack on working people and their representatives, and this has been the way this coalition and the Liberal Party have operated for decades. It is the same ideology and the same agenda as Work Choices.

The motion and this bill are about whether you think that there should be one standard for workers and their representatives and another standard for everyone else. This government does not care about integrity. This government does not care about lawlessness, and it does not care about workers. We will be opposing this motion and the bill. (Time expired)