Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2024 enables the manufacturing division of the CFMEU, which includes the textile, clothing and footwear workers, timber workers and furniture workers, to hold a secret ballot to demerge from the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, or, as we all know it, the CFMEU. Just two weeks ago, this bill was an amendment to the government's closing loopholes stage 2 legislation. Just two weeks ago, the Greens and the government voted to block the amendment and deprive these union workers of the opportunity to have a say on their future.

The textile, clothing and footwear sector is currently part of the CFMEU. The textile, clothing and footwear sector is the part of the CFMEU with the greatest number of women. Many of these are from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Many have had firsthand experience of exploitation, underpayment and unsafe conditions—everything that the Greens talk about that is unacceptable. After the merger, the textile, clothing and footwear sector moved into the CFMEU's offices. One of the union secretaries told the Age newspaper about the first meeting with the CFMEU, 'It was a male-dominated space.' But the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union had merged with the CFMEU, and that also meant sharing the office space. The union rep told the paper:

Within the building there were jokes about domestic violence. It was very uncomfortable to the point where our division had to leave the building.

To say the CFMEU have had women problems in the past is an understatement. I do not have eight hours today to go through every single one of them—otherwise, nothing else would get done—but I do want to say this: the past behaviour of the CFMEU, and indeed the Builders Labourers Federation, the BLF, before that, really does give unions a bad name. That's a real shame, isn't it? It's not just a shame about the behaviour but a shame that it so often overshadows the good things the union movement has achieved for this country over the years.

The first unions were formed by free workers—that is, not convicts—in Sydney and Hobart in the 1820s. The earliest unions in Tasmania were organised by craft workers in the late 1820s. Print workers, tailors, carpenters, bootmakers and bakers unions followed in the 1830s. Early trade unions were working people who came together to support each other through illness, death and unemployment. Yes, I'm going to give you a history lesson here this morning, Mr Deputy President!

On 21 April 1856, stonemasons in Melbourne walked off the job in protest over their employers' refusal to accept their demands for reduced working hours. This protest led to Australia becoming the first country in the world to have a mandated eight-hour working day. But this applied to only a minority of workers, mainly those in the building trades. Women became active in the union movement in the 1870s and often formed their own unions. Most workers, including women and children, generally worked longer hours for less pay. Working people and their unions kept fighting, and in 1916 the Eight Hours Act was passed in Victoria and New South Wales. It would take another 32 years for the Commonwealth arbitration court to approve a 40-hour, five-day working week for all Australians.

In the 19th century Australia was a male-dominated society. Women weren't allowed to vote and often not allowed to work. There were jobs for the blokes but not many for us women. Even if women could get a job, they weren't welcome in most workplaces. That's not to say they didn't work at home, doing all the domestic stuff—but, of course, women still don't get paid for that! Australia's first union for women, the Tailoresses Association of Melbourne, was founded in 1882, a year before Australia's first female student graduated from the University of Melbourne. In 1883, these ladies went on strike. The tailoresses strike was to protest a reduction in wages and call for an end to sweatshop hours. That these 200 brave women were going out on strike was described by commentators at the time as being 'extraordinary' and 'sensational'. Their strike resulted in changes to their working conditions and it got the attention of a royal commission, which ultimately led to a reformed Factory Act.

The fight for women's working rights continued and kicked up a notch after World War II, when women took over jobs done by men, who were now fighting for their country overseas. The ladies got a shock when they opened their pay packet and found their pay was less than the blokes'. The Victorian Trades Hall established a subcommittee for equal pay in 1943, taking up the longstanding demands of female-only unions. Once the war ended, many women wanted to keep their jobs and the pay they had fought hard for. The unions had to campaign for this issue well into the 1950s. It wasn't until 1972 that women were granted equal pay for work of equal value.

Trade unions in the late seventies and early eighties were getting a bad reputation, and they were often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Builders Labourers Federation was headed up by a very corrupt man whose name was Norm Gallagher. The unlawfulness of the BLF's industry-wide intimidation, violence, extortion, sabotage and financially damaging stoppages is widely documented. Following a royal commission into the BLF, the union was deregistered. Gallagher was convicted of, amongst other things, obtaining building materials to build himself a beach house—all for himself, instead of for his union and his workers. I can only say I hope that is not going on these days!

While the bad boys of the union movement did their best to overshadow the good parts of the union movement, the union movement itself was changing. Yes, union membership was falling—not helped by Norm and his mates—but the unions that survived and grew were often dominated by women: nurses, teachers, aged-care workers, textile workers and footwear workers. The modern Australian unionist is more likely to be a woman. According to the latest census, women make up a greater proportion of trade union membership, at 54 per cent, than men, at 46 per cent. Yet a division of a union with the greatest number of women isn't allowed to have a secret ballot to take charge of their future. That's all they're asking for—to take charge of their future.

Why does it need to be secret? That is a good question, and the answer is actually more depressing than anything else. It's because these union members have been intimidated in the past. The CFMEU do not want to let them go, because they want their money and they want control of them. How awful, in 2024, that the union wants their money and wants to control them! How about that? I hope the Greens over here are listening to me. I really do. It'd be nice to see some of your females sitting down here listening to this, because this is really important stuff. So let's review: a union with thousands of women, many of them from non-English-speaking backgrounds, wants to be able to have a secret ballot to leave the bully boys of the CFMEU and take control of themselves. That is all they are asking for. That is it. I have to ask: since when did a secret ballot become so controversial?

Some of these women made the trip to Canberra this week, and not one serving member of the Greens in the upper or lower house would meet with these women. The women asked to speak to Adam Bandt, the Leader of the Greens, and guess what? He wouldn't meet with them either. He sent a staffer instead, which makes me ask: Where is the Leader of the Greens and his courage? Where is his backbone when it comes to these women? Where is it? I have to say that he's dragging the rest of you down. This is the same Adam Bandt who put out a press release following the March4Justice protest that said:

… the men of this government are still not listening. But they can't ignore it and hope women will go away.

Right back at you, pot calling kettle! That is exactly what the Greens are doing. They're hoping that if they ignore these women they will go away with their request. Well, they won't, because I've got their backs.

When I say I stand up for women, I mean every woman in this country—not just the people I pick out of those women but all of them. The coalition has their backs. Senator Cash has your back. The only people in this place who don't have your back are the Greens and this government—the ones that go on about poor females and how poorly done by they are. They finally have a chance to stand up for these women, and what have they done? They've gone missing in action. That's right—they've run away, and they've bent over to their mates at the CFMEU. They're more worried about their donations than about women's rights in this country.

And that's what it comes down to. How can you, in all conscience, vote against these women? If your party is telling you to vote against this bill, I want you to think about how you will feel about betraying these women—these women that you've gone on about for years and years and years, about their equal rights and how they shouldn't be coerced or bullied. It's sitting here in front of you, and you're in silence mode. That's where you're at. We seriously cannot believe anything that comes out of your mouths anymore about females in this country and standing beside them, because it's rubbish. You do not. Both the government and the Greens do not stand beside them. All the passionate speeches that I've heard in this place about domestic violence, all the speeches about how women should be empowered to take control of their own lives—once again, I ask you this, one last time; go away and think about it: did you mean them? Now you're going to have to show it. Will you stand by your words, or will you look like hypocrites? Will you stand by your principles, or do you have none? And, last but not least, will you finally stand up for these women and do everything that you've always talked about when it comes to the women of this country?