Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Withdrawal from Amalgamations) Bill 2020, a bill that was introduced into the House shortly after 9.30 this morning—today! And now this government is ramming it through the Senate less than nine hours later. On what is International Anti-Corruption Day, I want to point out that we have waited two years for a federal anticorruption watchdog bill. This government claims it's been too busy to get onto it. Yet, in less than one day, it's magicked up a bill that affects unions and potentially dilutes their power. It can ram that through, but it can't ram through an accountability measure that would apply to its own mob to clean up their appalling behaviour. The Senate is not a rubber stamp. This government is treating it like a rubber stamp.

The Greens have moved for this bill to go to a Senate inquiry. Industrial relations laws are complex at all times but particularly when they pertain to union operations and the rights of workers to organise themselves. You don't want to get this wrong. Yet this morning the House passed this bill within 41 minutes, and many of the speakers—although there weren't that many, because there were only 41 minutes to debate it—pointed out that they hadn't had time to read the bill. What an absolutely disgusting process—to force parliament to pass legislation that people haven't even read.

If there's a genuine sense of urgency, there can be some flexibility shown. The minister in the House was invited to speak to urgency and could give no such explanation. There is no reason why this bill is urgent. There is no reason why the Labor Party should be supporting this bill, but one wonders if they want this dirty deal over and done with so that, by the time Christmas is done and we come back in the new year, people will have forgotten about it. Perhaps that's their motivation for siding with the government to ram this legislation through without even subjecting it to a Senate inquiry.

That's why the Greens are moving for this bill to go to an inquiry. Perhaps this bill is innocuous, but we haven't had the chance to hear from those who've scrutinised it and from those unions who will be potentially affected by it, to know what impacts it might actually have. It is reprehensible that a parliament can introduce a law, debate it in one house, pass it, introduce it in another chamber and pass it, all in one day, without an inquiry, when it potentially has such far-reaching impacts on workers' rights and on workers' ability to organise to protect what few rights they have left after seven years of this awful government attacking them and their rights at work. So we will not be supporting this bill, and we will be urging the chamber to support our amendment to send this bill to inquiry, which is the normal process in the Senate. That's what we are here for. That is our job.

I'll finish off by repeating that we've waited two years for an anticorruption watchdog bill. Within less than one day, we get a union-busting bill from this awful government. Their priorities are perfectly clear.