Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Administration) Bill 2024. I will say at the outset that I support this bill and will be voting for it. The issues that have been raised deserve to be properly investigated and addressed. It's in the best interests of construction workers that this bill pass urgently, because construction workers need a strong, effective industrial voice and a strong, effective union. It is clear that this bill will deliver the most effective way of delivering that.

The longer this issue drags on and the longer it takes to address the issues that have been raised, the longer it will be until we are back to having strong industrial representation for construction workers. That, of course, explains why the Liberals and Nationals are seeking to delay and draw out this process with a lengthy inquiry. We on this side of the chamber are coming at this issue from a very different direction to that of those opposite. We have introduced this bill because we believe every construction worker deserves to have union representation that always acts in their best interests. That is the motivation behind this bill. The Liberals and the Nationals come at this very differently. Their motivation in this saga is to destroy union representation in the construction industry altogether. It's just another piece of their policy puzzle to attack unions, destroy job security and drive down wages.

As the Liberals have happily admitted, attacking wages is their deliberate policy. Those opposite don't want the issues that have been raised to be solved. You don't need to take my word for it. Why don't you just look at their own record? Their first call in response to this saga was to call for the Australian Building and Construction Commission to be reinstated. What a farce! The issues that have been reported on all took place while the ABCC was active. They were supposed to be the tough cop on the beat, yet all that happened under their noses because they were too busy pursuing 'the real issues'—real issues like Eureka flags being flown on building sites. The ABCC spent half a million dollars on legal action to stop a Eureka flag being flown on a building site when the developer, Lendlease, didn't even have an issue with it. No-one—not the union, not the workers, not the developer—actually supported the ABCC action. It was an ideological farce.

Some of the other famous wastes of money the ABCC embarked on, with the full support of the Liberals and Nationals, included prosecuting the CFMEU for having COVID-19 safety posters in a break room, because the posters had the union and employer association logos on them. We know they launched cases about union stickers on hard hats. We know because they launched cases about union officials having a cup of tea on a work site. And my personal favourite—the half a million dollars the ABCC spent on losing an appeal to the High Court for a case about the CFMEU requesting a woman's bathroom be put on a work site. It was half a million dollars, and they went all the way to the High Court to prevent a woman's bathroom being put on a work site.

The ABCC was not a serious regulator, and those opposite cannot be taken seriously, either. That's not a matter of opinion; it's a matter of fact. The man those opposite hand-picked to lead the ABCC, Nigel Hadgkiss, had to resign in disgrace because he was exposed for intentionally misrepresenting the industrial rights of unions for two years. He spent two years lying to prevent unions and their members from leveraging their rights, and he got caught and he resigned in disgrace. This is the calibre of the ABCC. Of course, resigning in disgrace is a bit of a trend when it comes to the conservative ideologies—those opposite charged with attacking the trade union movement.

Another thought bubble that those opposite have had is to have another union royal commission. The last time they got into power they had the same idea. Unfortunately, it turned out that the most disgraceful conduct by anyone at the inquiry was by the man they put in charge, Dyson Heydon. For those who have forgotten, an investigation on behalf of the High Court found that Mr Heydon had sexually harassed six female associates while he was a member of the court. Mr Hadgkiss and Mr Heydon are the sort of company those opposite keep in their ideological pursuit of trade unions.

The reality is that no organisations in our society are more heavily scrutinised or excessively attacked than trade unions. It's one of the core principles of the Liberal and National parties: people should be deprived of the opportunity to join unions and collectively bargain. We have farces like the trade union royal commission witch-hunt and the ABCC, and then we had Senator Cash, as the minister, requesting that the Federal Police raid the Australian Workers Union—but not before tipping off every media organisation in the country. It was quite extraordinary: the minister of the day calling for 32 federal police to raid a trade union without appropriate cause. Then Senator Cash refused to be interviewed and refused to provide a witness statement to the investigation into that decision. For those that have forgotten, the AFP told Senate estimates in 2019 that they believed their evidence regarding the leaking of the raid to media may have been destroyed. When you have a federal minister directing police raids on unions and tipping off media ahead of time and you have the evidence of the tip-off being mysteriously destroyed, it really hits home about the environment the unions have to operate within in this country.

For these reasons, and for the good of union members, we know there is a heavy burden on all union officials to operate with the highest levels of integrity—and so they should—and ensure the highest standards of good governance. We know also that, when people do the wrong thing, it will be used by those opposite to smear working people fighting for fairness as a whole. That's why there is no-one more determined to ensure the best standards of governance in trade unions than the trade union movement and the Labor Party. There are some unions that operate in particularly challenging circumstances. There are some unions that have to represent their members in industries where criminal and corrupt conduct by employers is the standard for some of those businesses to do business and where unions and good, legal employers are threatened, intimidated and coerced.

In my view, there are few industries where that sort of conduct is more widespread than in the construction industry. I know firsthand because I've represented tip truck drivers and others in the construction sector. I can tell you that not a day went by without seeing people not being paid what they were owed. Not a day goes by without seeing workers being misclassified and having their wages stolen, their super stolen, their entitlements stolen. Not a day goes by without seeing workers put in unsafe, dangerous and deadly conditions. And, after transport, it is the deadliest industry in the country. Quite often, the reason for those unsafe conditions, the reason for those deaths and injuries, is that somewhere an employer, contractor or developer is cutting corners to save a buck. You never hear anything from the Business Council or Master Builders Australia about that. You never hear anything from those opposite about that. In fact, the Liberals and Nationals came in here and voted against criminalising wage theft and industrial manslaughter.

The ABCC, throughout its existence, did precisely nothing about safety issues, wage theft, super theft, sham contracting or any real issues impacting workers in the construction industry. That's despite super theft in the construction industry totalling about $420 million per year and wage theft totalling $320 million per year. That's $740 million per year stolen from workers. The only organisation that has done anything about recovering it is the CFMEU and other unions in that sector. We certainly never heard anything from the Liberals, Nationals or the ABCC, before it was rightly abolished, about that issue.

As an example, back in 2018, the redevelopment of the Royal Hobart Hospital was one of the biggest construction sites in Tasmania. The ABCC went out to that site on numerous occasions and never found anything wrong. But it turned out that there were nearly 200 Chinese workers engaged on that site, many of them on student visas or other temporary work visas, who had not been paid for six weeks. They had not been paid any of their entitlements. Many of them were victims of sham contracting arrangements. The ABCC, despite being at the site multiple times, never sniffed a single thing, but the CFMEU came in and in no time recovered $1.3 million for those workers. Decent companies who'd bid for that work—good construction companies who look after their workers—were outbid by a company that was stealing and thieving, and the ABCC did absolutely zip. That's more on one site than the ABCC recovered in wage theft across Australia in the preceding 2½ years. On top of all that, when the CFMEU had done all the hard yards in recovering the wages, when it came time for the ABCC to actually prosecute the developer—guess what? The ABCC dropped the prosecution. Surprise, surprise, surprise! It turned out that the anti-union authority didn't have a lot of interest in prosecuting dodgy employers.

The fact is that the work the CFMEU do in the construction industry saves lives. They campaigned tirelessly to criminalise industrial manslaughter, and that is now law. They campaigned tirelessly to ban engineered stone, which was driving a silicosis epidemic, and that is now law. While they were saving lives, recovering wages and protecting jobs, they were under perennial attack from those opposite, from the ABCC, from Master Builders and from others. It's not about any issues which have been reported on in recent weeks, which deserve to be thoroughly investigated. They do have to be investigated. That's why I support this bill.

Let's stop pretending that the Liberals, the Nationals and groups like the Business Council give a damn about the lives and livelihoods of construction workers. You never have before, and you certainly don't now. We expect we're going to have some ideological attacks, and that's fine in this debate. But we, on this side, want to get these issues investigated. We want them investigated urgently and thoroughly, and we want a strong well-run construction union representing their members' rights again.

I note that even Master Builders have called for this bill to be passed urgently and have rejected calls for yet another inquiry. Their CEO, Denita Wawn, said on Sky News yesterday:

…We desperately need this legislation passed, preferably this week, and certainly no later than next week's sittings …

It's not often I quote Ms Wawn. Andrew Tillett in the Financial Review over the weekend reported that Master Builders are not alone in telling the Liberals and Nationals to pull their heads in, saying:

The Civil Contractors Federation also called for the legislation to be passed as a matter of urgency.

Yet again, the delaying tactics of those opposite are supported by no-one and serve no interests other than their own political agenda. So, get out of the way and support this bill.