Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. This bill is fundamentally an ideological attack on the whole of the trade union movement. It reeks of spite and vengeance. It is the work of a government that has no interest in upholding good public policy and one that has always nursed a visceral hatred of trade unions; a government that is prepared to sit on its hands while unscrupulous employers exploit workers who are already poorly paid by failing to pay them their legal dues; a government that talks about being committed to undoing red tape yet promotes legislation like this that will unleash unholy opportunities for hostile interests to tie up in knots trade unions they don't like and whose resources are already stretched defending the rights of their members.

It's a travesty that the government has called this the ensuring integrity bill, because this legislation is wholly lacking in integrity. But what else can you expect from a born-to-rule mob full of arrogance and confidence that they have the silent Australians in their pocket? The offensive overreach of this legislation has already been revealed in the plethora of submissions to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. The bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also identified serious shortcomings:

In relation to this bill, the committee notes that while there have been a number of changes to the bill including relating to matters the committee previously commented on, these do not fully address the committee's initial concerns.

And what were the committee's initial concerns? It found that the bill was incompatible with the right to freedom of association. Freedom of association sits at the very heart of our democracy. That's why this right is protected by the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This important bipartisan committee, of which I am a member, was set up to hold governments accountable to their human rights obligations. In the absence of a domestic human rights law like a constitutionally enshrined bill of rights, it is one of the few tools we have to ensure Australia's compliance with core human rights treaties to which we are a party. But this government is prepared to trample human rights and ignore the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Make no mistake: this bill is not driven by any notion of integrity. It is a purely ideological attack driven by contempt for working people and for their representatives. The union movement has done more to maintain the integrity of our civil society than those opposite will ever know. Their ideological hatred of the unions blinds them to the struggles ordinary people have waged to obtain many of the rights, opportunities and privileges we now take for granted.

First Nations know this struggle very well, and indeed the union movement has been an important ally in the fights that First Nations have struggled through to get civil and land rights recognised. In the biggest struggles of social and economic justice, when oppressive governments and powerful vested interests have sought to oppress First Nations, it has been the union movement that has stood in solidarity and demanded integrity when no-one else would stand with us. It was the union movement that helped the Gurindji people in their years in the strike camp, sustained them in their struggle and gave Vincent Lingiari a voice in the big cities. The truck they used to ferry supplies from Darwin to the strikers at Daguragu is now in the National Museum. I'd encourage those opposite to go and have a look at it and ask themselves whether those unionists lacked integrity. It was the Council of Trade Unions, led by the then president Bob Hawke who stood side by side with First Nations peoples when we took on the Western Australian Liberal government of Sir Charles Court and an international mining company which wanted to drill on sacred land at Noonkanbah. I wonder if those opposite would say these struggles lacked integrity.

These struggles continue today. It is the First Nations Workers Alliance that is standing in solidarity with the First Nations workers on the CDEP, this government's ruthless and draconian program that is tearing First Nations communities apart. It is the union movement that is standing in solidarity with the First Nations, and we call on the government to properly respond to the Uluru Statement from the Heart for a voice to the parliament and to entrench that voice in the Constitution. The government first said they rejected this. Then they changed their mind. Now they're obfuscating and diluting it—because the minister, the first Aboriginal person to hold that portfolio, does not have the support of his leader, the Prime Minister, to deliver what the First Nations have already asked for. So much for integrity!

If this government is serious about ensuring integrity, it doesn't need this bill. All it needs is a mirror; when it looks at the reflection, it will see the lack of integrity. And, if it looks deeper into our history, it will see that it has been the union movement that has ensured integrity.

I heard Senator Patrick speak, and I understand that the government has tried to ameliorate the concerns of the crossbench colleagues, while secretly negotiating amendments which the government hopes will win them over—and it seems from his statement that they have. But, if those crossbenchers are thinking that these few hurried amendments can repair the damage that this legislation will cause to the framework of industrial law, which is already stacked against workers, then they're occupying a parallel universe, because this legislation is cruelly and cynically calculated to nobble trade unions and hobble their ability to protect their members from those who simply want to maintain a vendetta against unions and who will never accept the basic rights of workers to organise.

This bill is dishonestly pitched. It purports to apply to trade unions the same legislative regime as applies to business and corporations, but even a scant reading of the bill reveals that there is no balance here. This legislation does not put unions and corporations on the same footing, because the requirements on corporations are much less onerous and less punitive.

Take the provisions in schedule 1, for example. It lays out grounds for disqualification that are breathtaking in their scope. The minister or any person with 'sufficient interest' can apply for orders to disqualify a person from holding office in a union. The threshold for disqualification is as low as you can go. The new and expanded grounds for disqualification require one or, at the most, two instances of misconduct for an application to be made. That misconduct could be merely technical, like an official not having given the right notice when needing to inspect a dangerous worksite or to investigate the underpayment of workers. And, yes, we can believe that the underpaying company, the very company that may be perpetrating the underpayment, could be the party that applies to have the official disqualified. There is no such process available in law for anyone with 'sufficient interest' to have an errant company director disqualified. So this idea that unions are having to toe the same line as the corporate sector is not just a furphy; it's a blatant distortion of reality, and everyone can see through that.

It's the same scenario when it comes to the deregistration provisions in schedule 2. There are already, in Australian law, provisions that can be invoked to have a union disqualified. But, no, we have to have a special law specially aimed at those people we don't like in certain unions because they've upset someone! There are already in Australian law, as I say, these provisions. But that's not enough for this government which is so intent on destroying the trade union movement.

Under proposed schedule 2, the minister or, again, that other, scary person—whomever that might be—who has 'sufficient interest' can apply to the court to deregister a union on grounds that require one or, at most, two instances of unlawful conduct. It doesn't even need to be repeated, serious or wilful conduct. There's no way that corporations are subject to laws as punitive, unfair and capricious as the proposed laws we are dealing with here that will apply to unions. If such laws were proposed to deal with bad behaviour in the business sector, imagine the uproar, and rightly so.

I see that the government is, as I've said, trying to hose down the concerns of Centre Alliance by proposing amendments that will give standing only to the commissioner of the Registered Organisations Commission. Well, pardon me for thinking these amendments are like a boarding school penalty regime, and it's being applied here as in the other policy domains that especially affect First Nations peoples. That is the mantra that one culprit justifies punishment for all, and that's underpinning this bill. The Registered Organisations Commission is the same so-called independent regulator that's already been discredited for its illegal raids on the office of the AWU. It's the same so-called independent regulator that forewarned the minister's office about those raids and enabled the minister's office to tip off the news media.

Let's have a quick look at schedule 3 and see if it measures up to the standards that apply to companies. Schedule 3 deals with administration of what are called 'dysfunctional organisations'. Again, there's no equivalent for companies. If there were any similar treatment, unions could claim to have 'sufficient interest' and apply to have a company that's causing them difficulty placed into administration. Wouldn't that be a novelty and wouldn't there be an uproar in our nation! That would be just preposterous. Finally, there's schedule 4, which provides the means for mergers of unions to be blocked by the Fair Work Commission. There's a public interest test to be applied to mergers, whatever that means. The public interest obviously will be a political interest being exercised by someone else, not the rank and file of the unions.

One thing is for sure: this is an outright assault on the rights of workers to organise and exercise free choice. If this bill is enacted into law, Labor will make sure that it haunts the government all the way to the next election. Your divine right to rule over workers is so tarnished by your arrogance that it stops you from seeing the damage you are doing to a balanced and civil society. The government hasn't learnt the lessons from its own history. Work Choices was John Howard's legacy, but its attack on workers went too far and the Howard government paid the price for that in the 2007 election. This coalition government has learnt nothing from that defeat, because the bill has the same smell of vicious and petty vindictiveness which infected the Work Choices act.

Labor, on the other hand, will continue to remain true to its values of fairness. I encourage my crossbench colleagues to step away from this government's blind arrogance and stand with the workers in their time of need. We published a dissenting report after the inquiry by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee into this legislation. Our report called on the Senate to protect and uphold the rights of the Australian workers by rejecting this legislation, and that remains our position.

It is probably hard for people who are born to rule to understand the significance of having advocates who are able to put your case for you because you are inarticulate, because you have not had the flash education, because you do not know how to navigate the pathways of the courts or the tribunals or even the halls of the employer. It is probably hard to understand—and I feel sorry for you, because it is when you get involved in helping liberate both the employer and the employee from that ideological position that some good things can flow, to the benefit of not only both entities but the country as a whole. Unfortunately, this bill does not do that. It is simply aimed at attacking the trade unions, because that is the ideological position out of which it has sprung.

Labor's position will remain in search of better ways to improve these situations. There is nothing in this bill with which we will agree, because there is nothing in it which is founded on principles of good policy and achieving a balanced civil society. How are you going to get your garbage picked up if you smash the workers? Where are the chardonnay bottles going to be thrown and who is going to pick them up? Do not be surprised if you have a rubbish pile outside your front door because of the way you want to bash up the unions and the workers in this country. This bill is born out of an irrational prejudice, out of an innate loathing of unions, and because unions exist to protect the rights of the workers, to advance their opportunities, to ensure there are safe working conditions and to ensure that there is a balance between what the employer delivers and gets and what the workers are entitled to receive—justice.

Solidarity is required here. It is time to stand with the workers to ensure that they get their just and proper rewards for their efforts—for their work and contribution to the productivity and profits of companies—and to not treat them or their advocates as if they are some kind of irrational, irresponsible entity within our civil and political society. Unions have contributed greatly to the social and civic society that we have. Without them, many of the privileges we all enjoy would not be enjoyed by us at all. It is unfortunate that this bill seeks yet again to isolate workers and create further class war, perpetrated by you on the other side.

This is a bill that has very little to recommend it to anyone. Senator Patrick has great hopes about what these amendments may do to the bill, but, unfortunately, I do not share his faith in a government that is about destroying unions and not upholding workers' rights. (Time expired)