Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been looking forward to making this contribution to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. I want to start with the usual preamble I start with on legislation that has come before this parliament since this government was elected: poorly drafted, badly thought out, full of unintended consequences. That seems to be a recurrent theme with all the legislation we see here.

I can talk about integrity in the trade union movement as I approach my 45th year as a member of the Transport Workers Union. Like Senator Dodson, I didn't come into this place with black hair but with grey hair. I presume that is because Senator Dodson was as diligent as I was in ensuring that every action we took in the respective organisations we were a member of or party to or led were full of integrity. You don't get integrity by legislating for it in this chamber. The day I was elected as a delegate and given a receipt book to collect union fees, I was accurate in the collection of those fees. I was prompt in the payment of those fees to the appropriate official. The day that I was elected to the branch committee of management in the eighties, I was diligent about attending meetings as a member of the committee. I was diligent about reading the financial statements, about ensuring that we followed all the rules of the union, and the appropriate laws. Diligence and integrity are what trade unions are made of.

You don't get to be a union leader because you're so good; it's because the organisation and support are so good. You get pushed to the front by hundreds of delegates and thousands of members. When you go to a workplace, you speak with the authority of those delegates and those members. You don't get it from a law which says, 'You've ticked all the boxes—you've got integrity;' you get it because that's the way you're brought up in the union movement. You instinctively know what's right, because the broader membership always keep you on track. From time to time, I had many detractors amongst members of the Transport Workers Union. I had many campaigns to unseat me as an official or a secretary, but I always won. We never shirked that challenge, and people were democratically allowed to have that challenge at our AGMs, at our general meetings. We got better, and our integrity and our effectiveness got better, because of those continual challenges that the union movement in Australia is an exemplar for.

Without the union movement, as Senator Wong and other speakers have said ad infinitum, we'd been an infinitely worse society. We don't always get everything right—and I actually go back to times when we were probably getting a few things wrong, and there were some law changes: 45D and E may well be examples of that. But the union movement grows and moves on. We'll fight this, as Senator Wong has said, and we won't be diminished by it. There's no way you can diminish the power of a union. When people decide to act collectively, with diligence, common sense and fortitude, there's no way you can beat it. Passing a law here won't beat it. If I couldn't get into a workplace because an employer said, 'You haven't got your right-of-entry card on you,' I'd either go and get it or I'd organise in the car park. It makes no difference to me. You can say, 'You come in and sit in the lunch room. I'm not going to send any workers to you.' I'd just go about things in a different way.

These laws don't work to the benefit of employers or the trade union movement or for the greater good of society. They're ridiculously thought out—I don't know whether by senior or junior staffers. They've managed to convince their minister that they've got to do something: 'Let's go and whack in an ensuring integrity bill.' I can tell you that all of the 16 annual reports that I put in as the Secretary of the Transport Workers Union SA/NT branch were filed without any comment or question.

When I was the President of the Transport Workers Union there were three separate investigations into aspects of our operation. All returned a clean bill of health. Our integrity was challenged, our integrity was examined and we were found to have no case to answer. So this sort of thing, saying, 'We're going to get tough on unions,' is a cheap political stunt.

Let me tell you a story. The story goes back to a worker who was not a member of a union and who was unfortunate enough to get sacked. He said: 'I got a job with a transport company. They told me I needed an ABN number. I was so happy to get a job I didn't question it.' They said, 'Get an ABN number; this is how it works.' So he's turned up with his labour because that's all he's got; he doesn't have a ute or a van or a truck. They said, 'Get an ABN number.' He was just happy to get a job, so he got one. Six years later he gets the sack. And he gets the sack unfairly, in his view. Allegations were made. The allegations were found to be not proven. So he went to the Fair Work Ombudsman. The Fair Work Ombudsman said: 'I think you've got a bit of a case here. You look like an employee, not a contractor.' So he got a lawyer offering no win, no fee. He is found to be an employee, not a contractor. Then he goes to the Fair Work Commission and wins the case there and gets an offer for $11,000-odd worth of penalties and 9½ per cent super and the order says, 'The employer will pay within seven days.' Well, guess what? The employer didn't pay within seven days. And guess what? The Fair Work Ombudsman didn't take on the company directors who had not paid this person properly in the first place. Then he moved on to the ATO and his comment about the ATO was: 'They've said I've got a case. They said they owe me the money, but the process is so slow I still haven't seen any super.' So he went to the Fair Work Ombudsman, he went to the Fair Work Commission and he has signed documents saying, 'You are owed money.' The Fair Work Commission said to the company, 'You will pay.' The ATO is that bloody slow he hasn't seen the result yet, but they say he has 9½ per cent super waiting to be paid to him. It hasn't been actioned. This happened in 2015. It is now 2019.

So he went to a magistrate. He was in the Magistrates Court in March 2019. It is now November. He's still waiting for his wages that were underpaid. All four jurisdictions, whose processes he followed completely and precisely, have failed to deliver him one brass razoo. He has not received any of his wages that were underpaid. He has not received any of his superannuation. He's followed diligently and completely within the letter of the law every one of the processes that are available to him and he hasn't received anything.

What unions do is change that process. We change that process because we have collective strength. The collective strength is, if you've underpaid someone in your organisation and you have 50 people and 49 people look at the employer as perhaps not a person of great repute if they're prepared to underpay someone in an outlying position like that, things change and people get paid. This is the sort of thing that this type of legislation can't change. You can't change the collective nature of Australians that basically when things are awry they'll set things right.

I had respectful relationships with many, many employers, large and small. And I still have that respect for and friendship with some of them now. That was never built off any great liking for me or from me liking them. It was about it being a tough industry and needing to get things working—'Let's get this sorted out and let's get a deal that works for all parties.' As Senator Sterle said, a rising tide lifts all boats. So, if workers are getting a few extra bob, presumably they'll spend it somewhere else and the economy will tick along. And then they are happier and they contribute faster and more effectively.

One of the awful things that this legislation is really setting out to do is to change a pretty difficult situation. In any case where I had the authority and I thought that people were putting themselves in an unsafe position, either in continuing work or in operating equipment that was unsafe, I always advised them to stop, because the alternative was that something untoward or catastrophic would happen. That is not legal, but to a driver who said, 'My brakes are not working,' my advice was always: 'You're in charge of that vehicle. You're going to be legally responsible. It's on your head. Turn the vehicle back and tell them why.'

If you go to a building site and the steelworkers have finished all the steelwork, it's ready for a pour, someone notices something a little bit untoward and raises a safety issue, and it's not dealt with by the competent people who are basically trying to build a building quickly, the official would be in the same position as I was. If you're not confident that this is going to work properly, the alternative is catastrophic: don't do it. This is what happens in the building industry. This is what happens in the transport industry. I have to say, in a lot of cases, that nothing catastrophic will happen, but, when it did, I had to go to the homes of transport workers and speak to their surviving family about how they're going to get by without their loved one. You take those responsibilities really seriously. That would potentially be grossly illegal under the regime and laws that we currently have.

If you get a name as one of those people that won't take a backward step, this new law would allow, as Senator Wong has said, other people—maybe a rival but certainly an employer—to take action in the Federal Court and seek your deregistration or your removal as an official. I don't think that is anywhere near the appropriate way to go, for this reason: union members are smart, they don't suffer fools gladly, and, if you lead them up the garden path and you waste their time and money on campaigns that don't win, you basically get the boot. They won't re-elect you. The awesome responsibility you get from leading members of a trade union is also qualified by the fact that, if they don't like your actions and where you're leading them, the ballot box comes along and away you go. That is right and proper. That's how it should be. It shouldn't be at the whim of a government minister, an employer or someone with an axe to grind or a grudge to bear; it should always be at the wish of the members.

I was very fortunate. In the all the elections that I competed in at the Transport Workers' Union, I never got the boot. My margin seemed to keep increasing. I always listened very carefully to the membership. I took them where their aspirations wanted to go, and we obeyed the law as best we could. When it came to safety, I'd err on the side of safety than of the law, because, as Senator Sheldon said, if you have an Armaguard bloke petrified about a hold-up—let me tell you how that works. Do you know the rule in the armoured vehicle system? This actually happened. If someone is crossing the footpath with a bag of money and someone approaches that person to rob them, do you know what the driver is supposed to do? The driver is supposed to drive away as fast as he can. His mate is there getting shot, killed or robbed, and the instructions are that the driver has to leave the scene as quick as he can, in case they manage to get into the vehicle and get money. It happened in Adelaide. People were literally just shot, with no words, to take the money, and the car drove off to save the rest of the money.

If someone has a safety issue in those areas, do you think: 'Am I going to break the Fair Work Act? Do you think this is in contravention of subsection so and so?' You generally err on the side of caution. If there is a safety threat to people, you make yourself as safe as you can as quickly as you can. If that means not going to that place, or stopping work, that's what you do, and we'll get together and sort it out. Dare I say, most employers support that, because it is quite pragmatic and it makes a lot of sense. In the building industry, where there might be penalties for floors not completed or pours not completed or concrete trucks queued up in the street, it could be a little bit more problematic. But I genuinely believe, and you only have to look at the number of people killed in transport and/or construction, that the safety area needs a re-examination. We need to be able to genuinely address safety concerns and not have people forced to drive or work in unsafe conditions.

We're at a point where, I think, this government is almost six months old. Most of the legislation that's come through the Economics Committee—I made the statement here in the chamber—was poorly drafted, had unintended consequences and was not likely to meet the objectives that it set out to achieve. This is pretty much the same. Most people would see this and say, 'Oh, you can make an application to the Federal Court and you can have a union deregistered.' Anybody who has had anything to do with the Federal Court would realise that's not exactly how the Federal Court works. Presumably, the first thing that happens when you have a matter before the Federal Court is the allocation of a judge. Sometimes—and I found out to both my pleasure and my disquiet—whom you are allocated is a matter for celebration or disquiet. The judge you get may be a good one or a bad one, according to the legal fraternity. Then an inordinate amount of time passes. Then the registrar, who wants to get people in, says, 'This is a waste of the court's time. This doesn't need to go to court. Settle it.' Then you say, 'No, I'm not going to settle it.' Eventually, you have been allocated a judge and you get a trial. All of that would probably take 12 months or longer. Do you think an organisation is going to wait to be deregistered? Do you think an organisation that is challenged in this space is not going to fix its affairs so there's no need for the action?

Take the union that's mainly in the firing line with this legislation: the CFMMEU. Do you think that, if you deregistered them, they would suddenly disappear? When the BLF was deregistered, it didn't disappear. It became the Building Workers Industrial Union. What is deregistration? What do you intend to do? Presumably, the assets are then given to a like organisation. It's a real sledgehammer of a bill. Politically, it might sound wonderful. It would probably sound great when they're having a beer in the minister's office after it has passed—'Oh, we've cracked it! We've got the union movement on the run!' What a load! That's not how it's going to work.

This sort of legislation actually makes a union stronger. It makes them smarter, it makes them stronger, it makes them more effective. I'll tell you this: when you attack the trade union movement, they get together and the collective strength of trade unions is immeasurable. We've never actually seen a 100 per cent collective trade union movement in Australia, but, trust me, this government might actually get one. They might be putting legislation through, as Senator Wong and others have said, which would drive us together, collectively, and we'll get a better outcome than we've ever had. We'll have better leaders, we'll have smarter leaders, we'll have more-committed members and we'll do our job better. And doing our job better is a good thing for Australia because it means that workers will have more in wages, better superannuation, safer workplaces, and more pride in themselves, their companies and their uniforms. Plenty of trade union members are very happy, proud members of a company as well as having union membership to make sure things are shared equally. It's genuinely good to see good unions working with good employers for a successful outcome, and there are many of them. There are many examples in transport and there are many examples in the building industry.

I know a couple of retired building workers in Victoria. They've worked for the same company for 45 years. I'd say, 'Christo, what do you think of the CFMMEU?' and he'd say, 'Oh, mate, we never got anything without the union. Our boss was good. We had plenty of work, but the union made it so we were better paid, stronger and safer.' You can't legislate that away. You can try, Senator Cash and others. You can put your fair work and integrity bill up as long as you like and you can get the crossbenchers to support it, but they have no idea how unions work, just as you people don't have any idea how unions work. You only look at a little bit of aberrant behaviour here and there and try to assign that right across the union movement. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unions are genuinely good organisations, run democratically and are full of integrity. They make this lot here twice as good as the other side in terms of integrity. Working people don't suffer fools and thieves gladly; they get rid of them. If there are any in the union movement, they get weeded out very quickly. So I'm very pleased to make a short contribution here today.