Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

There are a number of issues which Senator Waters raised to which I want to respond. It would be lax of me not to respond to Senator Waters's assertions about a lack of debate on these matters. We know that there have been 34 speakers on the second reading debate. We know that was a debate over 11 hours. I haven't done the quick maths, but it seems to me that we have been discussing for more than five hours today the amendments before the chamber. And the only amendments that have been moved, I might say, are those moved by the government.

But Senator Waters has raised a number of other issues. She has raised concerns around workplace deaths, which are a concern for all of us. Ensuring the health and safety of workers is a priority for the government, and nothing in this bill—nothing—hinders or prevents registered organisations from being able to advocate for the health, safety and welfare of their members and of employees more generally. Recognising that any workplace death is a tragedy, I do want to note that workplace fatalities have been reducing. In fact they've fallen by almost 50 per cent, from a very, very unhappy peak in 2007, and 2019 has seen the lowest rate ever recorded. But one is too many. We know that, and so we work with the ABCC. Since its re-establishment in 2016, we've seen a continued reduction in workplace fatalities in the construction industry, and, as I said, we have seen further falls in other numbers.

The senator has also raised issues around the bill itself and why it is actually necessary. What I don't understand in this debate is why the Australian Greens are prepared to tolerate the unlawfulness and the extraordinary behaviour of some registered organisations in this country and their leadership and why they apparently consider that it doesn't require addressing. It requires addressing because it involves the intimidation of young people, of apprentices, on worksites around this country. It requires addressing because it involves the vile abuse of women in workplaces in this country, which the Greens apparently think doesn't require addressing.

I don't know how those at that end of the chamber, who preach constantly about these issues, can think that about an organisation that, in the time that this bill has been before the parliament, since July, has been fined by the Federal Court. The CFMMEU and seven of its officers have been penalised almost $400,000 by the courts for more than 30 contraventions of the law since this bill came before the parliament. If you are so supportive of appropriate treatment of women and young people, if you are so supportive of the rule of law in this country, which you advocate for—as one would expect a senator to do—why do you support unlawfulness on a grand scale that sees 30 contraventions of the law since July of this year? Why do you support the ABCC needing to commence legal action against the same organisation for unlawful conduct? This allegedly included workers being spat at, being called dogs and scabs and being photographed and filmed, with images of them uploaded to the CFMMEU Facebook and then used to troll, harass, bully and intimidate people online. Why do you support that? I don't understand that. I've been sitting in this chamber listening to the Greens for a very long time. You have a mortgage on moral outrage, but not on these issues, because you don't care. You don't care about that sort of bullying and intimidation. Well, this government does.

You have also raised issues around wage theft, and I want to be really clear that registered organisations and their officers will not be prevented from continuing to advocate for wage increases as long as they're doing it in compliance with the law. In fact, we encourage them to do so. The bill does nothing, as I have said multiple times in the chamber today, to diminish the right to form a union or to join a union, nor does it limit the rights of unions to organise, to bargain, to take protected industrial action, to represent their members or to exercise rights of entry, including to investigate suspected underpayment issues, and this government has taken steps to address issues impacting vulnerable workers with our legislation in 2019.

We have taken steps to appropriately support the Fair Work Ombudsman in the work that they do, which has seen a step change in the amount of litigation and fines being applied to employers who are doing the wrong things. But, more importantly in fact, in some cases it has seen a step change in the amount of wages being returned to those vulnerable workers, over 60 per cent more in this calendar year than in the previous year. Those amendments to the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act have increased penalties up to tenfold. We have seen—for example in your own state of Queensland, Senator Waters—sushi operators in this case fined $125,000 for their exploitation of workers and those workers appropriately recompensed for that.

The senator has also referred to a federal anticorruption body. This is another stunt by the Greens—clearly unsurprising, but another stunt. It's a delaying tactic. It's not much more than that, because this bill is very, very, very focused. It's addressing a specific issue through appropriate and focused provisions to implement recommendations of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, for example, and I do think that the introduction of the issues that Senator Waters made in relation to a federal anticorruption body shows that they are completely bereft on this matter, because apparently they don't care about blatant lawlessness in a registered organisation. They don't care about that. They don't support this bill, and they won't be supporting this bill.

The government knows that registered organisations in this country enjoy a very privileged position in the Australian industrial relations system and in the economy more broadly. And, quite frankly, there's no place in this system for those who breach the trust that is placed in them by the privilege that they hold as a registered organisation. Those who act in their own interests at the expense of their members, or those who show nothing but contempt for the law that otherwise applies equally to all Australians, won't be protected by this government. But the Greens appear to want to protect that sort of lawless behaviour. We know that the royal commission itself uncovered numerous examples of flagrant disregard for the law. We know that this is not a new culture of lawlessness. We know it's been exposed over the years. We know that, for some organisations, fines are just a cost of doing business, and we think that is absolutely unacceptable.

Where courts have penalised registered organisations for doing the wrong things, whether it is endangering workers' safety, harassing and intimidating public servants, including female police officers, throwing apprentices off job sites or trying to pocket workers' hard-earned wages in union dues, we know that that behaviour is continuing, and we know that nothing that has been done so far has curtailed that sort of behaviour. Well, it's not something that we're prepared to put up with. That's why we've reintroduced this bill. It's to ensure—and in some cases restore—integrity and to provide that, where an organisation, a division, a branch or an officer is doing the wrong thing, something can be done to stop that misconduct, to assure members that their organisations are acting with integrity and in their interests.

We have had a long discussion today across a whole range of issues, including the myths that have been perpetrated, particularly by those opposite, about this bill—the myths around paperwork, the myths around what constitutes obstructive action, the myths around why individuals should not be a fit-and-proper person and the myths around whether the corporate requirements meet the registered organisation requirements and others. But, most importantly, what this bill does is to address the numerous examples of organisations and their officers who repeatedly flout the law, misappropriate funds, put their own interests before those of their members and generally fail to meet basic standards of accountability and governance.