Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The CFMEU stole more than a billion dollars from members it was supposedly protecting in Australia's largest ever case of wage theft. The key to this theft was CFMEU union bosses appointed as directors to oversight agencies supposedly protecting workers. They colluded and enabled that theft from their own members. This is verified. The figures are verified in an independent report that I commissioned called Coalminers' Wage Theft, printed earlier in the year.

We have seen an analysis of five enterprise agreements in Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley with the wage theft varying from $41,000 per person, per year to $21,000 per person, per year. The Independent Workers Union of Australia, now getting members in the mining sector in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland, has just lodged a number of complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman. One of the complaints is for $211,000 in money owed due to wage theft for one person.

The CFMEU drove that theft of wages, so what we can see is the former protector of miners has been their exploiter, with collusion of the regulator, the Fair Work Commission. It's been verified independently because the Mining and Energy Union, which split off from the CFMEU—it couldn't handle the CFMEU—and which looks after miners recently applied to the Fair Work Commission to negotiate a new enterprise agreement. The uptick in wages has been around $50,000. It's been verified they've been underpaid. What has not happened is that same union, the Mining and Energy Union, which used to be part of the CFMEU, will not go back and seek back pay, because they know that will expose them. There is no back pay. They will let these miners lose $211,000. They will let these miners lose $41,000 per person, per year.

So now we have the Independent Workers' Union of Australia making inroads in the mining industry in the coalmines of Central Queensland and the Hunter Valley. Their union dues are less than half of the Mining and Energy Union. Why? That's because they don't pay millions of dollars in donations to the Labor Party. It is the same with the Queensland Teachers' Union. The new Red Union's dues are less than half of the Queensland Teachers Union. It is the same with the nursing union, where the dues of the new Red Union and the Nurses' Professional Association of Queensland are less than half of the Queensland Nursing Union. What we need to do in the union side of things is end monopoly unions and make sure unions have competition. That will fix it. Members can scrutinise when there is competition.

Let's move to what I said earlier in my opening statement. The directors in the coalmining agencies that oversaw this theft from coalminers, the directors of Coal Mines Insurance, ignored the plight of miners. We even know of miners who failed to get their Coal Mines Insurance that they were entitled to, scrimping and saving and sleeping on their parents' garage floor in the Hunter Valley. That's what the CFMEU directors have done. They turned a blind eye to their duty to look after miners.

Coal Mines Insurance is a statutory agency with the CFMEU providing half the directors. AUSCOAL Superannuation, another one supposed to look after super, has provided admin services to coal long service leave, another government entity. So AUSCOAL Superannuation, which has directors from the CFMEU, provided the administrative services for coal long service leave and that enabled the hiding of the wage theft, because the CFMEU directors were 50 per cent of Coal Mines Insurance, AUSCOAL Superannuation and Coal Services, which looks after basic things like health checks, medical checks. AUSCOAL, by the way, has been renamed Mine Wealth + Wellbeing—that's a cute little phrase!—and now Mine Super. These directors have prevented many of the benefits that they should have been overseeing going to miners. They stole the rights and entitlements of their own members.

By the way, the Labor Party under Julia Gillard changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011 to enable the use of casuals, because casuals are not allowed in the black coalmining industry award. They wouldn't have been able to get their super. So the Labor Party, to enable this scam, changed the coal long service leave legislation in 2011. The next thing: we can't rely upon the normal back stop, which is the Labor ministers, departments and agencies. I've just explained how the agencies are colluding, the departments are colluding and the Labor ministers are colluding. This wage theft would not have occurred without the deliberate collusion of Labor Party MPs in the Hunter electorate, who just hid this atrocious theft. The Senate ordered an investigation a couple of months ago into this. Two ministers since then, Minister Burke and Minister Watt—they've done nothing. They had not even reported back to the Senate—they've done nothing. That's the Labor Party. So much for looking after the workers!

I wonder if it's because the Labor Party relies on millions of dollars of donations from the CFMEU? Would that be the answer? Would it?