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

I, too, rise to speak on this very important issue. Sadly, it's a motion that should not be needed. I don't even think we need to call them 'potential' conflicts of interest, Senator Roberts; these are conflicts of interest. Whether you want to call them out or whether you want to run a protection racket for these conflicts of interest is a separate question, but these are clearly conflicts of interest. It is something, as Senator Bragg pointed out, that has been inquired into before. There is no doubt that the cosy relationship between the unions, industry super funds and some business groups is not a positive thing for Australian workers, for their retirement savings or for the economy in general. They lead to a situation where potential conflicts of interest become real conflicts of interest. As Senator Bragg pointed out, the Chair of Cbus—someone who is very well known in the Australian political environment: former Treasurer Wayne Swan—is actively campaigning for this Labor government's particular approach to the housing issue. Three members of the board were appointed by the CFMEU. You really couldn't make up the conflict of interest. If you submitted this as a plot to Hollywood, they'd laugh in your face.

It's a ludicrous situation that we currently have, where these billions of dollars of savings are controlled by these small cabals, dominated by union representatives. Superannuation savings are now bigger than the entire Australian stock market—they are bigger than the entire market capitalisation of the Australian stock market. In fact, it depends on the year because it does bounce around a bit, but in 2023 superannuation controlled something like 36 per cent of shares on the ASX. Over a third of all shares traded on the ASX are controlled through superannuation. And, through their representatives, the union movement plays an outsized role compared to any fair judgement of what its level of influence should be in that sector. Unions represent less than 10 per cent of private sector workers, all of whom are contributing to superannuation. Ten in 10 contribute to superannuation; less than one in ten is a member of a union—and yet they get these privileged positions with very large remuneration attached and, behind the scenes, the ability to influence, to direct funds, to direct investments and to direct support service contracts. There are the infamous training levies that we've all heard so much about. All these things are controlled by a tiny cabal of individuals. Now it's revealed—surprise, surprise—that the CFMEU has been involved in corrupt and thuggish behaviour. But this isn't 'surprise, surprise'. There is literally no surprise. The trail of case law, of matters before the court, of CFMEU officials being prosecuted and the fines levied against the CFMEU for decades means that there is no 'surprise, surprise' here. Governments have tried to do something about this before.

Senator Hanson, I think, glancing around, that you're probably the only one in this chamber that would remember this along with me. I wasn't in the chamber at the time; I worked for Senator Cormann. Early in the Abbott government, there was an attempt to legislate independent directors of superannuation funds. That had been agreed with the crossbench at the time, but guess what? The unions, particularly, as I remember it, the CFMEU, did their work in this place and they got to the crossbenches—not you, Senator Hanson, I make sure to add. They got to other members of the crossbench, and the deal that had been done disappeared under the intimidation of the union movement, acting through various bodies, but I'm pretty sure the CFMEU was part of that push at the time. I was working in the building at the time and I remember it very clearly.

They have a track record here. There's nothing that the union movement won't do to protect its cushy little relationship with the industry super funds. Yes, the CFMEU has been revealed to be perhaps more thuggish, more brutal and more unreasonable in the way it behaves, but, quite frankly, this is a set of relationships right across the union movement that bears much, much more scrutiny. In fact, in a modern world, where superannuation is bigger than the entire stock market, the justifications for any of these cosy relationships to appoint board members disappeared long ago. They are a relic of a past industrial relations system that was centrally controlled. Sadly, they've managed to survive to this point, where we have a new Labor government trying to recentralise the industrial relations system and defend the indefensible in terms of these very cosy structures that Australians have to live under.

Australians are forced, by law, to contribute to superannuation. Many young Australians, in their first job, are put into a super fund controlled by the union movement. Australians, being who we are, don't think about our retirement when we're young, so we stay in that super fund. So you've got millions of Australians in these super funds controlled by unions like the CFMEU that has three board members on the Cbus board. Wayne Swan, the National President of the Australian Labor Party, the former Labor Treasurer of Australia, is the chairman. These cosy relationships just should not be tolerated in this day and age. Yet, here we have, again, merely an inquiry into this clear problem area of the CFMEU and its level of influence not just over public policy and not just over the Labor Party—we've already heard of the 6.2 million reasons why they have so much influence over the Labor Party—but over the retirement savings of hardworking Australians. Why? Why do we have a system that gifts the CFMEU—I understand the Labor Party is about to pass legislation putting them into administration, but why does that union have the right to place three board members on an industry super fund? It's absolutely ludicrous given everything that we have heard. It's ludicrous anyway without everything we've heard about the CFMEU and people. It's not just this gentleman. I shouldn't call him a gentleman. It's not just John Setka; it's a raft of CFMEU officials going back decades whose behaviour has been not only tolerated but actively encouraged by the Labor Party through legislated rewards, such as guaranteed board positions on industry super funds. The benefit that they're handing to corrupt, thuggish union officials is extraordinary.

Never forget what John Setka did after he was forced out of the CFMEU. What did he do? He got a tattoo, a permanent mark around his neck saying, 'God forgives. The CFMEU doesn't.' It's a direct threat. This is the person who was able to influence the appointment of board members on industry super funds managing the life savings of Australians. If it wasn't such a ridiculous scenario, you'd find it extraordinarily hard to believe that something like this could have been allowed to happen in the modern Australian society. Yet there we have it.

We have it because of those opposite, the Labor government, enshrining in legislation a set of principles that reward bad behaviour, thuggishness and the institutional strengths of unions, even though they don't represent the workers. They don't. Fewer than one in ten private sector workers in this country have decided to be members of a union, yet they are given all this control. The crossbench has never been brave enough in unison to vote against that power, control, thuggishness, brutality and corruption. We need that to change. We need the superannuation industry to change. We need to see those independent directors on every single board.