Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We on this side of the House do laugh that this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019, is called 'ensuring integrity' and that the government is seeking to disrupt the hours of the Senate in order to have a debate on something called 'ensuring integrity'. This is a government and a Prime Minister who run from integrity at every opportunity. We saw evidence of this today. What did we see in question time in the other place? Another protection racket by the Prime Minister for his minister Angus Taylor. As confirmed today by the New South Wales Police Force, detectives from the State Crime Command's Financial Crimes Squad have launched Strike Force Garrad into Minister Angus Taylor. Let's be clear about this: the New South Wales police have launched a strike force by the State Crime Command's Financial Crimes Squad into a minister in this government. Where's the ensuring of integrity in the cabinet of this government? What do we see in question time in the other place? The Prime Minister running a protection racket for Angus Taylor. We see it here, with the Minister representing the Prime Minister refusing to comment on the specifics of the Angus Taylor case. Yet they have the hide to come in here and say that this bill is about ensuring integrity.

This is a government that is willing to turn a blind eye, quite frankly, to what's happening at Westpac: 23 million breaches of the law, some of those facilitating the sexual exploitation of children. There is money laundering that could be linked to terrorist activity. But they don't need to do anything about those executives. They don't need to do anything about deregistering any organisations that are involved in that type of criminal activity. But, for three mere breaches of paperwork, the unions and representative organisations of nurses, police officers and teachers can be deregistered. That is the integrity that this government cares about: paperwork breaches by the representatives of working people, not money laundering 23 million times by Westpac. Let's not forget: this is the government that voted 26 times against a banking royal commission. Where was their concern about ensuring integrity in the banking sector when 26 times they voted against a banking royal commission?

This is a Prime Minister who is not interested in ensuring integrity. Both in this Senate and in the other place, we have time and again seen the government run away from even answering basic questions about who the Prime Minister wanted to invite to the White House for dinner. It's a state secret, apparently—'We can't tell you whether the Prime Minister wanted to invite his pastor, Brian Houston, to that dinner at the White House, because that's something the public doesn't have a right to know.' Where is the integrity in this government when the Prime Minister can't even tell the Australian people whether or not he wanted his own pastor to come to dinner at the White House?

Quite frankly, if we are going to talk about hours—and this is an hours motion—where is the concern about the integrity of this Senate? They are disrupting the Senate and the discovery of formal business in this Senate. All of the crossbenchers are not going to get the time to move their motions, to have their debates and to participate in debates on motions to take note. This is a government that does not respect the integrity of the procedures in this Senate, so desperate are they to ram through this week a bill that takes away the rights of working people.

Let's not forget that every good thing that has come for working people in this country, whether it is the eight-hour workday, paid parental leave, occupational health and safety or domestic violence leave for women fleeing domestic violence, has come because unions have agitated for it. It is because of the representatives of working people that we have got every good thing in this country for working people, and it is this government, through this charade of a deal, that wants to rip that away.