David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We wanted to move an amendment to this motion that would have called on the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to attend the chamber for ten minutes upon conclusion of this motion to explain whether Labor will return any of the millions in donations it has received from the CFMEU. We wanted to move that as an amendment, but there's a deal between the coalition and Labor to provide political cover for Labor, for whatever reason—I don't know. I don't know why you're trying to do that. We wanted to move that amendment and have the minister, the Six Million Dollar Man, come down and explain what Labor are going to do with the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars that they have received in the last decade from the CFMEU.

I will say this—I've said it before and I will say it again: the Greens have not received any political donations from the CFMEU since 2013, and I don't see that changing. It says so much about the so-called modern Labor Party and the coalition that we're debating a bill which is about very real and deep concerns about misogyny and violence, very real and deep concerns about union democracy, and very real and deep concerns about the overreach of a federal government to be able to reach into any organisation they choose—it starts with unions, it goes on to the next—and how we structure safeguards around that.

These very deep, real matters of principle have been engaging the Greens, both the party room and the movement across the country. These matters are very real principles of concern so as to ensure construction workers can go to work and come home alive, to ensure that the rights of individuals to have a democratically controlled union are not just overridden first by Minister Watt and then by Senator Cash when she's minister. These are matters of deep and real principles that we've been trying to negotiate with the government on, but, when on the other side of the negotiating table, it's 'Computer says "no"'. That's Minister Watt's negotiation style, 'Computer says "no"'. That's his negotiating style. That's his idea of negotiating, that and then threatening us with Labor memes. That's what we're dealing with.

We have matters of genuine principle that we want to see addressed through amendments and in-principle discussions. We've got these concerns we would like to articulate in detail in a second reading debate, but instead we're spending the time having this, what, second debate on the Birmingham double backflip belly-flop motion that we're dealing with. Instead we're doing that.