Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start by addressing Senator Pocock's point about the ACT CFMEU being somehow a cleanskin. They have been inserting themselves into the procurement processes of the ACT government for years, to the point where the Master Builders have actually had to complain about the level of interference that the ACT CFMEU is undertaking in government procurement. This is an organisation with a track record which would make some criminals blush. They have time and time again been seen to be involved with thuggery, coercion and illegal activity—and with using language that would make most of us blush—in a way that is designed to intimidate on worksites and intimidate people in the building industry. We've heard and seen, through prosecutions in our legal systems, the intense criminality of this organisation, but sadly this is part of a much bigger picture.

We have to go back to the start of this Labor government and the tranches of industrial relations legislation that it has brought into this place and that, with the help of the Australian Greens and the crossbenchers, we have seen passed through this place. Those pieces of legislation were called all sorts of Orwellian things like 'closing the loopholes' or 'same job, same pay'—Orwellian phrases. They're Orwellian because they did not mean what they said and they did not do what they said. They were doublethink from this Labor government and the Greens—its aiders and abetters—who basically had a laundry list of union demands and took them through this parliament with no thought to what that would do in the longer term to the Australian economy and Australian businesses. They were quite happy. For years, Minister Watt was quite happy in estimates to, through his years in opposition, defend the CFMEU and its behaviour.

Minister Watt was quite happy to do it, and now he's all crocodile tears and outrage that these allegations have come to light. They've been part of the known behaviour of the CFMEU for decades. These allegations haven't suddenly come to light in the last few months. They've been known for years, through repeated prosecution through our court system. The standover tactics, illegal behaviour and thuggery was not only tolerated, but it was part of the union's business model. So what did Labor do when they came into power? They passed this series of industrial relations bills, which should've been called 'Let's do what the unions demand,' because that's the truth. If you want to use clear and upfront language to name a bill, the bill should've been called 'Industrial relations amendment (what the unions want)'.

We've seen it, and we're starting to see it, particularly in my home state of WA in the mining industry in the Pilbara. I'll remind everyone again, because this is the elephant in the room when we have these conversations, that only eight per cent of the private sector workforce believes that unions are worth joining—one worker in 12. If you strip out some very heavily unionised parts of the white-collar workforce, that figure drops even lower. Yet we see the union movement using Labor's IR laws to insert themselves into workplaces where there is no union presence, via five-year-old enterprise agreements, and insert themselves into new negotiations so they can, once again, impose their ridiculous demands and their ridiculous approach to labour relations onto our mining powerhouses.

Let me take you on a history lesson, because, sadly, I am old enough to remember this. In the mid-eighties, there was a very famous dispute, the Robe River mine dispute, where union practices were basically sending a company to the wall. There were over 200 workplace practices that were, quite frankly, ludicrous, and I'm just going to go through a few of them. On a relatively small mine site, there were 20 shop stewards who didn't have to do their own job. They were just there to represent the union. They had to have an office and a telephone. They were just there to represent the unions. If someone was asked to do five minutes of work after hours, they had to be paid for an eight-hour day.

The thing that triggered the Robe River dispute involved a superintendent at the power station, the manager of the power station. When all his staff were off on strike, the power station tripped. It literally was a flick of a switch to get the power station back on. It didn't just power the mine; it actually powered the community. It actually powered the homes of the families who were living in that community near the Robe River mine. It was literally the flick of a breaker switch to get power back on for those families, but the union was out on strike. It said that the superintendent wasn't allowed to do that; it had to be a trade union member who flicked that switch—'We're off on strike again!' Well, they were already out on strike, but the strike action went on, demanding that that power station manager was punished for turning power back on to the community! Think about that for a moment. The sad bit about this story is that the mine management at that time actually rolled over and punished that manager—suspended him from his workplace. Do you know what the union did? They said: 'That punishment's not enough. You have to punish him more.' Charles Copeman, the manager of Robe River Mining, who gets awful criticism from those opposite and their fellow travellers, came in. You know what the first thing he did was? He didn't sack any workers. He sacked five of his senior managers for rolling over to these ridiculous demands based on union thuggery.

The final upshot of that three-month dispute was that, after that dispute and the de-unionisation of that workforce, Robe River Mining was taken from being a failing company—a company that was literally going broke, operating at 60 per cent of capacity with declining levels of productivity—to being a profitable company again. It was actually able to provide people with jobs, long term, because guess what? Within the ridiculous systems that the union had set up, there were 20 shop stewards who didn't actually do their job; they were employed to be, say, an electrician, a miner or a machinery operator, but they didn't do their job; they sat in their office as a shop steward. They found that two out of every three positions in that mine were actually unnecessary for its production. They actually produced more ore with two out of those three positions not being there. And—and this is the kicker, because those opposite and the unions say, 'It's all about safety'—accidents on the mine site and disputation actually went down. The mine became safer. The mine became profitable, and there were long-term jobs there for the people who were employed—long-term high-paying jobs, I would add. These were not people who were struggling in terms of their wages.

That was the 1980s. We went through a period of reform, and the Australian economy became more efficient. Productivity improved. But now, sadly, with Labor in charge once more, with the most left-wing prime minister since Gough Whitlam, we are now seeing the Labor Party follow the union's playbook every step of the way with no deviation. That was until now, where we again have the minister crying his crocodile tears about the CFMEU and wanting to be seen to be tough on this thuggish organisation—the same organisation that he, for years, in this place and in estimates, not only defended but carried water for. He attacked, to support the CFMEU—he attacked Senator Cash, for years, to support the CFMEU, absolutely knowing the thuggish behaviour. It's on the record of courts. It's been litigated so many times. It's been prosecuted so many times. Nobody can deny for a second that they did not know about the thuggery within the CFMEU.

The latest example of that—I honestly thought this might have been fake news when I saw John Setka's new tattoo. The threat inherent in that tattoo—and, for those who haven't seen, John Setka has a tattoo now around his neck that reads 'God forgives the CFMEU doesn't'. There's a threat inherent in that tattoo to every company in the construction industry. I suspect there's a threat inherent to those opposite if they don't toe the line and do the right thing by the union movement, which is who sent them here. Let's remember that: the union movement sent each and every one of them here.

The Labor Party is the political wing of the union movement. They do the bidding of the union movement, which represents, at best, one in 12 of the private sector workforce in Australia. And I know why it's only one in 12. Those 11 out of 12 workers who reject the unions know about that thuggery. They know about the standover tactics. They know that a positive relationship with their employer is best done one on one. It's best done at the workplace. They understand that the union movement is out for itself. It's not out for them. It's not out for the workers. And this Labor government is not there to help the workers. It's just there for itself.