Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

This is unacceptable. We will need to take a break to get someone to come into this place—I don't care who it is—who is actually going to inform the Senate. You knew you were coming in here today. I'm quite sure the minister's office, the department and your office knew there would be a line of questioning in relation to the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Do you honestly think it is acceptable? There are people in the gallery here today who are witnessing a minister within the government either refusing or being unable to provide the Australian Senate answers to incredibly simple questions.

You have said you are confident there are no gaps. I'm now exploring the statement that you have made to the building and construction industry across Australia. They employ in excess of 1.1 million employees. Over 400,000 small businesses rely on them. They contribute about nine per cent annually to Australia's GDP. You have no answers in relation to some of the most basic questions, which either the minister's office or the department should have anticipated. Again, it will be a very, very long three hours, because I will go through each one of them. As I said, what I'm reading out are powers that the ABCC had. I'm asking you—it's a simple yes or no—has this power transferred over to the Fair Work Ombudsman? The answer, 'It's in the Fair Work Act,' is not helping anybody, so we're going to go through this again.