Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand here proudly to reaffirm our intention to abolish the ineffective and the highly politicised ABCC. It has promoted the coalition's objective of maintaining an adversarial industrial relations system with low wage rises as a deliberate design feature.

The Labor government believes agreements can be reached on work sites and that we can obtain a balance. We know that there are employers out there who are raring to take advantage of Labor's industrial relations policies. They don't want this ideological mud wrestling that we've got going on here. They don't want all of this yelling, shouting and carrying on, and the highlighting of small parts of particular areas, rather than looking overall at what these changes will do. They don't have any respect for workers. But not all employers want to crush workers. That is just not true, but it is what those opposite would have us believe.

The ABCC is intentionally adversarial with no real traction or outcomes to speak of. Only a handful of the current Australian Building and Construction Commission legal cases actually involve some of the cool things they were set up for. They don't involve underpayment to a worker. They don't involve delayed payments to a subcontractor. What they involve, in the main, is the prosecution of union officials and delegates, or should I say the persecution because the ideological manner in which they roll is unforgiveable. Did the ABCC recover wages for workers? No. A total of $5.9 million in seven years. Let's just compare this $5.9 million in seven years to the $530 million that the Fair Work Ombudsman recovered in one year alone or even the $17 million that the CFMMEU recovered in just six months. I think we can see quite clearly where their priorities are. The ABCC is ineffective and a waste of taxpayer money. It's been a disaster for productivity in the sector, and it's done little to deal with any of the exploitation of workers that we have seen.

Let's have a little revisit to the productivity data which Senator Sheldon went through before. It was declined every single year while the ABCC was the regulator pre-pandemic. Every year there was a decline. Every year there was a decline of over two per cent: 2.4 per cent in 2017-18, 2.6 per cent in 2018-19 and 2.6 per cent again in 2019-20. So, we have productivity fail and we have wage theft recovery fail.

How did they go on the prosecution? My colleague went through some of those cases. Let me tell you how much those cases that Senator Sheldon referred to cost. The Eureka flags: basically having a flag or a few stickers on a worksite is such a major drama for the ABCC that they spent over $488,000 pursuing Lendlease over it. Then we had the issue of the women's toilet on a worksite, which was pursued at a total cost of $495,000. And, as for the cup of tea, that's just ridiculous! I will point to what the judge said:

I hold the clear view that this is a case where the ABCC should be publicly exposed as having wasted public money without a proper basis for doing so …

So, the ABCC is a waste of time and a waste of money.

The hostility against the rank-and-file workers in the CFMMEU is deplorable. The CFMMEU is an amalgamation of great many unions, many with their own very proud histories. I do not stand here for one moment and defend any illegal activities, but I will tell you that those workers, those union members, are out there and they represent the solidarity of thousands of hardworking Australians across a vast range of industries that Australians rely on. Those opposite undermine the thousands of hardworking unionists, hardworking people in Australia, working in industries that our country relies on.