Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia who listens to the people, I know that everyday Australians are concerned about the many rip-offs, rogue businesses, dodgy organisations and rogue officials repeatedly breaking the law. I stand today for honest workers, honest union members and honest unions who are concerned about what this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019, might do to them because of a few rogue union bosses and employer organisations.

Early in my career I worked as a coalface miner, mostly underground, and was a member of the proud Miners Federation that took strong care of miners. I went on to manage Hunter Valley coalmine. At every mine I led, people had greatly improved safety and productivity. Later, as a mining executive, I worked with miners and union delegates to establish a pioneering award that set new standards for our industry and improved performance and safety benchmarks across the Australian coalmining industry. My concern then, as it is now, was to ensure that our miners and workers returned home safe and well to their families after every shift. Yet some company executives and union bosses today still do not realise that a real focus on safety results in higher productivity and safer, happier, more satisfied workers.

My father, Ieuan, devoted his life to improving coalminer safety and livelihoods in New South Wales and Queensland. For his efforts, he was inducted into the Australian miners' hall of fame and appointed a member of the Order of Australia. His career followed his father's, that of my grandfather William, who died a painful death from black lung in Wales. My father helped eradicate black lung through huge improvements to mining safety legislation when he was Queensland's Chief Inspector of Coal Mines. As the mine manager of Hebburn No. 2 underground coalmine near Cessnock in the heart of the Hunter Valley, Dad worked closely with Bill Chapman, who was at the time miners' lodge president. Although the pair had their battles, both earned each other's respect and regard. My dad fondly remembers the note that Bill sent him when my dad retired. Years later, I remember speaking out alongside Bill when he was president of the proud miners federation in the Hunter. I publicly stood beside him and spoke in support of his advice at a union meeting, when I was an underground coalface miner on night shift. My life and history in mining is why I stand up for everyday Australians and honest workers.

Over recent months, One Nation has worked constructively with many employer and employee organisations and unions, including representatives of the Queensland Council of Unions and the ACTU, who raised a range of genuine concerns about this bill. I personally read, for example, every page of the CFMMEU's lengthy submission. The earlier version of this bill raised real concerns from many Australians, such as procedural fairness, further clarity around the court's use of its discretion, clarity as to who is a person of sufficient interest and the presumption of innocence that everyday Australians expect. The Queensland Law Society expressed concern to us over a number of issues.

One Nation listened extensively to all. We took these real concerns to the government and demanded real protection for honest employers, honest workers and honest unions. One Nation would not stand and will not stand for union bashing and could not in good conscience support a bill that would deregister organisations for misdemeanour offences like not getting their paperwork in on time. In the interests of a fair go, we want to ensure that everyone starts with a clean slate.

Back in 2017, former One Nation senator Peter Georgiou—my predecessor—identified that, as it was, this bill needed to improve and align with the Corporations Act, and I acknowledge his efforts. We proposed positive improvements to this bill, and these have been accepted. The community gives registered employer and employee organisations, including unions, many rights and privileges, and with these rights come responsibilities. In fact, the 2018-19 Registered Organisations Commission's annual report discloses that, in that year, it handled three inquiries, all on employer organisations. It handled eight investigations, half of them into employer organisations. It investigated 24 referrals from the Hayne royal commission and five court actions, including taking an employer organisation to court. While it is not pleasing to see these breaches, it is pleasing to see that this report does demonstrate that employer organisations such as the Australian Hotels Association are being held to account when they do wrong. The hotel association was fined over $157,000 in September for failing to hold elections and for recordkeeping breaches.

Now we need to talk about the sort of organisational misbehaviour that should be stopped and about the rogues that tarnish honest unions and employer groups and give them a bad name. Consider Ian Kirkwood's article two weeks ago in the Newcastle Herald, after he spoke with two women. Both were injured at work while driving trucks for the Japanese labour hire firm Chandler Macleod at BHP's Mount Arthur mine. Both women say that they have been treated appallingly. They were injured and abandoned by BHP, abandoned by Chandler Macleod, abandoned by the CFMMEU and abandoned by government agencies who were supposed to care for their health and safety.

When raising the plight of a number of Hunter Valley black-coal miners in Senate estimates hearings last month, I called out the parties responsible for scamming and exploiting Hunter Valley miners. Here are some examples of injured employees who Chandler Macleod dumped at BHP's Mount Arthur open-cut coalmine, New South Wales's largest mine. There is a coal-truck driver who is now 67 per cent disabled after a 600-tonne coal excavator belted his truck. In breach of safety laws, this incident was not reported by Chandler Macleod or BHP. Another person rolled and broke an ankle. Once fit to return to work, no job was provided. That is yet another incident, one of many, that Chandler Macleod and BHP did not report. One person was told that the mine had had a large number of safety incidents and that, if he reported his injury and his incident, he would be fired; he would lose his income. These people and others have shown authorities documentary evidence that their injury was not correctly reported. Yet BHP, Chandler Macleod, the New South Wales government and the CFMMEU don't care.

The 1996 Gretley mine disaster killed four workers. The report, entitled The politics of a tragedy, later looked in detail at how the New South Wales occupational health and safety act should have applied. The men's employers should have been prosecuted. Three of the deceased men were employed by the labour hire firm United Mining Support Services, UMSS, yet it was never prosecuted or even investigated, but the employer of the fourth deceased man was prosecuted. The majority owner of UMSS was the CFMEU. The failure to prosecute UMSS raises serious questions about the integrity of New South Wales health and safety investigation and prosecution processes.

And there's more! The CFMMEU, as it is now known, not only represents workers in mines like Mount Arthur; it is in partnership with the New South Wales Minerals Council, the employer body, and between them they own the workers compensation insurer. Yes, the CFMMEU part-owns the workers compensation insurer for coalminers, called Coal Mines Insurance. This same CFMMEU owned insurer was the one that refused to pay injured Hunter Valley coalminers their lawful entitlements. This is a clear conflict of interest. In the Hunter Valley, the CFMMEU stands for money, not people—for money, not its members.

Here are some more solid facts: Chandler Macleod, a Japanese owned multinational, dishonourably refused to pay injured coalminers their accident pay. Chandler Macleod supplied misleading information in regard to New South Wales compensation claims for injured coalminers—fraud. BHP allowed Chandler Macleod on their mine site with no workers compensation in place for four years, and, knowingly, the CFMMEU did nothing. BHP and Chandler Macleod do not report all injuries sustained at the Mount Arthur mine, and the state government does nothing. The CFMMEU know about this and do nothing. They are the part-owner, as I said, of Coal Mines Insurance, and they save money by not paying out to deserving workers.

Government organisations like Coal LSL don't check their facts, and they push injured miners away. The so-called casual workers are underpaid 40 per cent. Yes, they're underpaid 40 per cent! They have no leave—no sick leave and no annual leave. The CFMMEU approved the substandard conditions and pay rates of the casual miners working on coal production. They're called 'casual miners' even though they work the same hours, the same roster and the same duties as the full-time production workers who work beside them at Mount Arthur.

Worse: I have seen a letter, dated 14 April 2015, from Chandler Macleod to the CFMMEU's Peter Jordan, the president of Northern Mining, in which Chandler Macleod said, 'The CFMMEU would cease from any current and future actions and claims, in its own right or on behalf of members, directed towards ventilating and agitating its view that employees currently employed by Chandler Macleod as casuals to perform black coalmining production work may be entitled to leave and other entitlements associated with permanent employment, or that Chandler Macleod is not paying employees their lawful terms and conditions.' In other words: drop it. And the union agreed. The relevant award, which the CFMMEU accepted, does not provide for casual mine workers, yet the CFMMEU did the deal.

But it gets worse. Right now, every day, hundreds of so-called casual coalminers are being exposed to needless risk, with reduced and apparently illegal and inferior protection in terms of workplace insurance, workers compensation and accident pay. And what does the CFMMEU do for them? Nothing. This is collusion at the highest level against workers. If coalminers who once had a proud and strong union are abused and exploited like this today, what chance do other honest Australians have against these rogue employers and rogue union bosses? Affected mineworkers have shown me documents, including letters and pleas to union bosses and New South Wales state government agencies, who did nothing. Currently, millions of dollars each year flow to unions and some employer organisations—yes, some employer organisations—from very large, inappropriate commissions paid to them by insurance companies. Yet these companies offer union members substandard income protection insurance products at grossly inflated prices.

Again and again, everyday Australians have seen the corrupt antics of the likes of the Health Services Union officials stealing money from union members to pay for prostitutes. Workers in the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and the AWU have lost entitlements including penalty rates in grubby deals between union bosses and multinationals and large Australian employers. Workers suffer under the aggressive and collusive misbehaviour of the CFMMEU in the Hunter Valley. These rogue officials are not interested in everyday Australians or honest workers. Some trade unions have now just become rich big businesses and political entities, with access to rivers of gold ripped from the pockets of hardworking union members and employee superannuation funds. Some collude with employer organisations.

The investment earnings on workers' entitlements do not legitimately belong to unions or to employer associations and should not be able to be transferred to these associations through resolutions passed by their representatives on boards of worker funds. It is completely unacceptable that worker entitlement funds that contain more than $2 billion in worker entitlements are subject to extremely inadequate governance arrangements. Employers have contributed this money for the benefit of employees, not for the benefit of unions and employer associations. Two billions dollars is a vast sum of money, and these funds would have paid members more if their investment earnings over the years had not been siphoned off to unions and some employer organisations. Right now, these rogue bosses are using everyday workers' cash for their own personal political agendas.

One Nation wants to ensure that industrial laws are fair and protect honest employers, honest workers and honest unionists. Mt Arthur Coal ignored these workers' long service leave entitlements. Fair Work and the NSW Workers Compensation Independent Review Office ignored them. They knew that these people at Mt Arthur Coal were casuals. These workers were employed this way for many years by a company that should know better. These honest workers were not insured properly, and legitimate complaints and injuries were covered up. They all know this. BHP does not care. It's gutless, intimidatory and unprincipled and lacks sound governance; that is clear. Chandler Macleod does not care and the CFMMEU does not care for honest, hardworking Australians. I want to acknowledge again, as I did a couple of weeks ago, Mr Simon Turner, a man who was crippled while working for Japanese owned labour-hire firm Chandler Macleod at Mt Arthur Coal. There are more and more affected workers coming forward every day. Today I call for action for them.

In subsequent talks with the government, I clearly stated my aim as being to protect these workers. I thank the government and I particularly thank Senator Marise Payne for her interest. These are the needs I see for these workers: (1) ensuring that all workers who have been scammed, exploited and denied their legal and moral entitlements receive their fair entitlements as production workers in the black coal industry, plus compensation for their suffering and trauma; (2) ensuring that the rorts and unsafe practices that the CFMMEU has either agreed to, done backroom deals with employers about, or been blissfully unaware of are stopped immediately across our industry; and (3) securing justice for the workers and penalties for the perpetrators of the BHP Chandler Macleod CFMMEU scam hurting hundreds of coalminers and their families. This exploitation occurred under the watch of BHP Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mackenzie, and Mike Henry in his role at the time of as head of the BHP's coal division. The CFMMEU's bosses include Peter Jordan and Tony Maher in the Hunter.

Regarding casuals, I can see that mine owners and employers need some casual workers because of the cyclical workload peaks at mines. Casual workers, though, must be paid and treated fairly, honestly and openly. Those same casual workers who were employed or formerly employed as casuals advised me that the Fair Work Commission's website states clearly that production miners can only be employed full-time—permanents, not casuals. It seems that even the Fair Work Commission missed that one when they were rubberstamping the enterprise agreement, as did the CFMMEU when it signed off on their EA. The CFMMEU's New South Wales division's sinister web of alliances and deals with organisations like BHP, Chandler Macleod and the New South Wales Minerals Council gives them access to play with many millions of workers' dollars through overseeing basic entitlements such as worker safety, long service leave, superannuation, medical, and health monitoring. The CFMMEU stands for money, not members.

You know, these workers took their concerns to the ALP member for the Hunter federal electorate, Joel Fitzgibbon, six times, and they were shown the door again, again, again, again, again and again. Finally, these workers went to One Nation's Stuart Bonds, an experienced and trusted figure in the Hunter Valley community, and a CFMMEU member himself. Stuart gave them a voice at last, because he brought them to me and to Senator Hanson's chief of staff, James Ashby. I travelled to the Hunter to listen to eight injured miners, physically, mentally or emotionally crippled, on their experience with BHP, Chandler Macleod and the CFMMEU. I took a barrister working in my office and a former barrister working in Senator Hanson's office. We got the facts and started the action we are now taking, and we will continue to take it until all the miners' needs and my three aims for them are fulfilled. The Attorney-General's Department has confirmed our analysis, as has Ian Kirkwood, journalist at the Newcastle Herald, who I tip my hat to, who continues digging into this and other events surrounding the CFMMEU.

I ask yet again why the CFMEU donated $1.3 million to founding the activist group GetUp!, whose No. 1 campaign is to kill the coal industry in our country. The outcome of this bill, if it is to pass, must be to hold both employer and employee organisations like these rogues to account.

In relation to this bill, everyday Australians expect to see honest employer and employee organisations, honest unions, to be free to thrive. At the same time, they want the rogue organisations to be held accountable for exploiting union members for personal and/or political gain and power.

Bob Hawke, the respected leader of the ALP of the 1980s, when introducing legislation for the deregistration of the BLF, stated, as Prime Minister, that we should remain 'mindful of community concern that the deregistration powers we now propose should not be used indiscriminately or capriciously'. Bob Hawke said that. We endorse his comments. What the concerned stakeholders and employee organisations who have approached One Nation want is to ensure that this bill does not punish honest unions. Technical breaches should not be triggers for deregistration; nor should they affect hardworking union officials who are standing up for their members.

One Nation will continue to stand up for workers and for honest unions. We will continue to stand up for people such as farmers and small business people who are being belted at the hands of rogue banks or stupid government red tape like the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. One Nation members include a high proportion of everyday Australians from working and trades backgrounds, and we are proud of it. We are proud to stand up for workers, for farmers, for families and for everyday Australians who deserve a fair go. It's time for improved accountability and for integrity, as everyday, honest, hardworking Australians rightly expect.