Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Don Farrell has asked questions in relation to corporate equivalence, and I'm certainly not satisfied with the answers in relation to that. Evidence before the Senate committee on these issues really put to bed the idea of any real corporate equivalence in the legislation at all. So I'm keen to pursue these issues with the minister in terms of a suitable level of accountability upon corporations who also may breach occupational health and safety laws and some of the kinds of offences in this act for which union officials are targeted but which corporations seem to get away with quite frequently.

The Attorney-General's made repeated remarks about the bill striking some sort of balance or equivalence with laws that apply to corporations and company directors. Indeed, he said so in the House of Representatives in these debates. But the evidence to this committee certainly doesn't back that up. Industrial organisations are not corporations, nor are they equivalent to corporations. I note that the government's way of arguing that there was some kind of corporate equivalence between businesses and unions was simply to say, 'Well, employer organisations represent employers in the same way that unions represent workers, so we will subject employer organisations to the requirements of registration and the provisions of this act.' What a complete nonsense! Employer organisations aren't in the workplace. They're not like the employers or the employees who are the union members, who are in the workplace in the context of occupational health and safety law and in the context of any of the breaches of this proposed act. So it is an absolute nonsense to say that there is some kind of equivalence just because employer organisations will be required to keep records, membership lists et cetera in the same way that unions are. When you look at the reality of how this so-called corporate equivalence is constructed, it is an absolute nonsense.

In addition, industrial organisations are often small. They're not-for-profits overseen by elected officers who are mostly volunteers. You'd be very aware that, when you work in a corporation, the corporation's leadership are paid, and they're paid to do the industrial work. On the other hand, your union members within a workplace, who will be involved in these negotiations and in industrial action, are not. The structure and purpose of unions are not comparable to those of profit-making corporations, which do not have elected leaders.

Even if the false pretext that a registered organisation is comparable to a company were to be accepted, the bill, frankly, places a significantly more onerous obligation on registered organisations than exists for companies. A great deal of effort was taken by witnesses to highlight these issues to the Senate inquiry. We know company directors cannot be disqualified for contraventions of legislation that do not pertain to corporations. This bill increases the scope of laws and offences that a union official could be found in contravention of and subsequently disqualified for, far beyond the equivalent for company directors and corporations.

The minister highlighted that changes have been made to the legislation, but, quite frankly, this is not parity with the Corporations Act. Ms Volzke, in evidence to the committee, explained:

Changes have been made to the bill based on feedback from the previous iteration to ensure parity, as far as possible, with Corporations Act equivalents, noting that the bill has been appropriately adapted to the regulation of registered organisations ... the definitions of 'designated laws' and 'designated findings' have been amended and are now limited to core workplace laws. The concept of wider criminal findings has been removed from the bill entirely. These are core definitions which flow through the various schedules of the bill.

That has nothing to do with corporate equivalence when it comes to this legislation. The simple fact is that a union official can be disqualified for breaches of occupational health and safety law or industrial law but company directors cannot. They are not automatically disqualified. It is not a ground for a company director to be disqualified for contraventions of legislation that do not pertain to corporations.

We regularly see company directors breach industrial law. That's not a ground for disqualification under this legislation. It's only a ground for disqualification of union officials and unions. Maurice Blackburn highlighted these issues in evidence to the committee when they said:

The main problem with the policy settings underpinning the Bill is a failure to acknowledge that there are profound differences between organisations and corporations in terms of their reason for organisational existence, decision making processes and how they are resourced.

Professor Anthony Forsyth said:

… the significant differences between the two types of organisations mean that there is no basis for the automatic application of the corporate model of regulation to unions. Many of the provisions of the Bill therefore proceed from a flawed assumption.

You say that there is corporate equivalence because unions deserve to be regulated in the same way that corporations are, but you've not recognised the purpose of unions, their model of operation and how they work. In turn, you do not hold corporations to the same standard as unions and union officials under this legislation. The very best way of highlighting that is to come to grips with some of the core questions around this legislation.

I ask the minister: do you think that company directors should be subjected to possible disqualification for contraventions of industrial or work, health and safety laws? If the government agrees that it's appropriate, that would be some kind of corporate equivalence. Unions uphold occupational health and safety. That's the very reason that they go in to workplaces: to uphold occupational health and safety and to secure the working conditions of employees.

It seems absolutely ludicrous that we can have a whole debate about so-called corporate equivalence in the context of this legislation where union officials will be held to account for breaches of industrial law, health and safety laws or work safety laws but corporations are not. It is a complete furphy of a debate to say, 'Yes, we are going to regulate unions just like corporations, but we are not going to hold corporations to the same standard as which union officials and unions will be held to in this legislation.' The 'corporate equivalence' this government has debated questions of is a complete misnomer.

In the context of debates about corporate equivalence, the ACTU explained to the committee:

By extending the range of contraventions that can ground a disqualification order to industrial laws and work health and safety laws, the court-ordered disqualification regime in the Bill goes beyond that applicable in the corporate context. For example, the 'designated findings' might relate to conduct that contravenes an FWC order to stop unprotected industrial action, regardless of whether or not the union members considered that such action was in their best interests, or to a failure to give 24 hours' notice of entering a workplace to investigate a suspected contravention of a work health and safety law, because the union officer knows that if they give the requisite notice the employer will hide the evidence. On the other hand, directors of companies that engage in systematic wage theft as part of their business model, or that recklessly expose workers to risk of serious illness or injury or death, are not exposed to disqualification.

We need to take these issues very seriously in this place. I am tired of this government talking about some kind of corporate equivalence when it refuses to hold companies to account for this kind of behaviour.

Let's step through what the ACTU have said here. They have said there could be grounds for a disqualification because a union official breaches a court order in relation to unprotected industrial action. Do you know why they took that unprotected industrial action? It's because for it to be protected they would have had to go through a process that would have alerted the corporation to the fact that they were going to take industrial action on that issue. That means already they are prospectively in breach of the legislation in terms of having committed an offence that would put them up for disqualification. On the other hand, for a company that might have gone away and hidden the evidence in relation to workplace injury or illness the director is not subject to disqualification because that has taken place in their company.

The government might like to say that, on the one hand, if it is to do with occupational health and safety and there is imminent danger then that will protect the action. But these issues could be in relation to wage theft. They could also be in relation to occupational health and safety issues that are not imminent. There are big debates going on at the moment about the level of carcinogens that welders are exposed to. We have all seen the emerging evidence that's got the attention of occupational health and safety agencies in relation to silicosis, I think—I can't remember the terminology, but it's widespread in the construction industry. People are now realising that they need to go on strike and they need to make sure that industrial action is being taken seriously around a whole range of occupational health and safety issues that represent a long-term danger to someone's health.

This was exactly the case with asbestos. There is widespread use of products that may not fall inside or outside particular concerns around health at the moment, but I absolutely respect the right of people to take industrial action, protected or not, around raising awareness on those issues. We would have not had the action on asbestos that we had in our nation without unions being prepared to do that. So, Minister, do you think company directors should be subject to disqualification for contraventions of industrial— (Time expired)