Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to use this time to make a contribution on one aspect of this bill that I don't think has had a huge amount of attention in this debate so far, but I think it is extremely important that it does, and that is the proposal in this bill to increase the powers of the Registered Organisations Commission in relation to the activities of trade unions. The Registered Organisations Commission, which we know was an organisation set up by Minister Cash when she held the Industrial Relations portfolio, before she was demoted after her disgrace over the AWU raid, was established with the express purpose of going after unions. And that is indeed what it has done since it was created by Minister Cash.

I'll come to what the Registered Organisations Commission has done since its inception shortly, but just so that people are clear: in essence, what this bill proposes to do is to increase the powers of the Registered Organisations Commission by granting it the power to bring applications which could result in the disqualification of union officials or the deregistration of unions on the basis that a particular union official, in the view of the Registered Organisations Commission, is not a fit-and-proper person to hold that role. That is obviously an important power to bestow on any public authority—the ability to make a decision to bring an application to disqualify an elected office-bearer of a union, or of any other organisation, from office. And it does bestow a lot of power on the Registered Organisations Commission to make that determination as to who, in its view, is a fit-and-proper person. Of course, these matters would have to go to the relevant tribunal and be tested, but it's the Registered Organisations Commission that will initially make that decision about whether it considers a particular union official to be a fit-and-proper person and therefore whether that person should be disqualified from holding office.

If such an important and broad power is to be granted to a particular organisation, you really want to have some confidence that that organisation is an impartial entity—a high-calibre entity with high-calibre staff who can be trusted to use that power properly and to not use those powers for political objectives of the government of the day. We, of course, opposed the creation of the Registered Organisations Commission because we could see through what the government was doing. They were seeking to establish yet another enforcement agency to take out trade unions, to back up the ABCC, their other attack dog that they created to go after trade unions, and the Registered Organisations Commission was set up for the same purpose, if broader, because it had the power to cover all unions rather than just unions in the construction industry. So from its very beginning the Registered Organisations Commission had no credibility whatsoever as to its claims to be an independent organisation, and the way it has conducted itself ever since has only confirmed that.

Only this week we have seen the Registered Organisations Commission's independence again called into question. I said in my contribution in the second reading debate that this government really has a knack when it comes to choosing the timing of debating legislation, because in the very week that we're debating a bill that they say is about ensuring integrity in the trade union movement, we've of course seen Minister Taylor caught up in the latest scandal involving ministers of this government, which has led to the Prime Minister making personal phone calls to the police commissioner whose police force is investigating one of his own ministers—no integrity there. And there have been a series of other things that the government have done this week which have demonstrated their complete lack of integrity, while they insist on setting a ridiculous bar for trade unions.

But this is another example of the poor timing that the government have in choosing to debate this legislation this week. In the very week that the government bring in legislation to grant more powers to the Registered Organisations Commission to go after trade unions, by giving them the power to determine who is a fit and proper person and who should be disqualified from holding office as a union official, we see the Registered Organisations Commission's investigation into the Australian Workers Union, the infamous investigation which led to a police raid, going down in what newspapers have referred to as a 'humiliating defeat'. It's a humiliating defeat, on only Tuesday this week, for the Registered Organisations Commission, as the Federal Court quashes its investigation into the Australian Workers Union.

For those who haven't followed it, this is the investigation that the Registered Organisations Commission conducted into trumped up claims that former Labor leader Bill Shorten had engaged in some kind of misconduct when he was in his role as the Australian Workers Union national secretary over 10 years ago, 12 years ago. That investigation was deemed so worthy of being pursued—12-year-old trumped up claims designed to denigrate and go after the then leader of the Labor Party—that it has now resulted in a humiliating defeat, being totally quashed by the Federal Court and found to be invalid. We've now got a fight on in the court about whether the documents that were seized by the Registered Organisations Commission and the Australian Federal Police should be returned to the union, who owned those documents in the first place.

The question really is: why would this government expect anyone in the public to have any confidence that its latest unions attack dog, the Registered Organisations Commission, could conduct itself in an appropriate, impartial, independent and fair manner, when just this week we've seen the Federal Court strike down its most celebrated investigation into a union, on the basis that they did not have reasonable grounds for pursuing that investigation in the first place. Not only do those opposite want to retain the Registered Organisations Commission, despite the fact it has been completely delegitimised and exposed as another police enforcer for the political ends of this government; with this bill they want to give it more power to go after unions. Again, this is another sign of the fact that this bill is really just designed as the latest piece of armoury for the government to take on the trade union movement and, ultimately, to come after working people.

I think it's also worth mentioning some of the comments of the Federal Court judge who heard this case, because he goes into some detail about the behaviour of one of the senior officers, essentially the second-in-command at the Registered Organisations Commission, Mr Chris Enright. There are a number of comments that were made by the judge in his earlier judgement in this case, in October, which can only demonstrate again to anyone who's approaching this debate with any degree of objectivity—and I'm particularly talking here about the crossbench—why the Registered Organisations Commission is a completely inappropriate body to be given even more powers.

Here are some of the comments from the Federal Court judge in his judgement in October on this matter. At paragraph 339 he refers to the fact that he had concerns about the reliability of evidence given by Mr Enright. He says that the evidence given 'involved inconsistency and was not plausible'. This is the guy who the government has empowered—and wants to now give more powers to—to come after unions. This is a guy who gives evidence in court that is not plausible and is inconsistent. The judge found that Mr Enright's evidence about one aspect of these proceedings involved him reconstructing events in a number of ways. The judge talks about the fact and considers that it was 'unwise' for the person about to embark upon an independent investigation, that being Mr Enright, in which he recognised that Minister Cash—and we'll come to her in a moment—had a political interest, to have had direct contact with the minister's office. So, he's conducting an independent investigation into the AWU, but feels that it's appropriate to talk to the minister's office in the context of that investigation. And the judge then goes on to describe, in extremely kind terms, aspects of Mr Enright's conduct which can be characterised as 'overly enthusiastic or exuberant'. I think that's what you'd call a euphemism.

So, we have a government that establishes another attack dog to go after unions. They've got the ABCC. That's not good enough for this government, so they set up the Registered Organisations Commission as the next attack dog to go after unions. They stack it with people who they know are going to carry out their political objectives. That organisation, just this week, goes down in a blaze of glory in the Federal Court, in a 'humiliating defeat', as newspapers have described it, and has its most high profile investigation quashed by the Federal Court because it didn't have reasonable grounds for pursuing it. And, rather than doing what they should do, which is to abolish the Registered Organisations Commission for its obvious partisanship and incompetence, they now want to give it more power to go after unions. So, again, I say to the crossbench: if you need any further proof that this bill is not about cleaning up workplaces, or all the other things that the government comes up with, but is actually just the next step in this government's ongoing war against trade unions and working people in this country, then just have a look at what's happened this week. I've got the press-clippings here if you want to have a look at them: '"Humiliating defeat" for ROC as court quashes AWU case'.

Of course, as you will recall, this investigation all stemmed from the infamous conduct of Minister Cash and her office, where Minister Cash initiated this investigation by the Registered Organisations Commission by referring trumped-up claims about the former Labor leader, Mr Shorten, to the Registered Organisations Commission, knowing full well that they would do her bidding, because that's what they were set up to do in the first place. They launched an investigation into these trumped-up charges, and of course her office then went on to leak the fact that the police were going to be raiding union offices to the media, so that the media could be there to film it. As we all remember, Minister Cash, on many, many occasions, denied that her office had leaked this information. And of course the truth all came tumbling out, which is why she had to be demoted to a more junior portfolio and stripped of the IR role that she used to have to prosecute unions herself.

We had the Registered Organisations Commission in at estimates recently, and it just so happened that it was shortly after the October decision of the Federal Court in this matter, where the judge made all those scathing comments about the behaviour and conduct of Mr Enright. I put a lot of that to Mr Enright at Senate estimates, and I've got to tell you: I was gobsmacked by his nonchalance and his inability to understand what damning comments had been made about him and his organisation by a Federal Court judge.

I actually offered Mr Enright the opportunity to apologise to the people of Australia for the way that he and his organisation had carried out this investigation—found by a Federal Court judge to have no reasonable grounds, resulting in a humiliating defeat for the Registered Organisations Commission, and with all sorts of scathing comments made by the judge about Mr Enright's own behaviour. I gave Mr Enright the opportunity to give an apology to the Australian people. And you know what he did? Not only did he not apologise but he actually demanded an apology from me and other Labor senators for pursuing this. I remember Senator Sheldon was in the room, and there were a number of other senators there as well. I don't know if I've ever been more shocked by evidence given at an estimates hearing by a public servant than I was that night. These people are deluded about their objectivity. They are completely set up for the partisan purpose of going after unions—and this government, rather than abolishing them, actually wants to give them more power. I'd just ask the crossbench to reflect on that before this debate is over.

In concluding, I want to ask the minister some questions. Why should the public have any confidence in the Registered Organisations Commission, given just this week they've suffered a humiliating defeat where they were found to not have reasonable grounds for their most high-profile investigation? What assurances has the minister given to the crossbench about the Registered Organisations Commission's conduct in the future? And what changes will the government make to the Registered Organisations Commission to ensure this won't be repeated again? (Time expired)