Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am not prone usually to statements of 'I told you so', but, on behalf of the coalition parties, as we stand here debating the lawlessness, corruption, bullying tactics and intimidation of the CFMEU, let me say to the Labor Party, the Greens and all those who've defended the CFMEU over the years: we told you so.

You've been warned again and again, not just by the coalition but by many across industry, many across Australian society and even from within Australia's courts, about the constant, persistent lawbreaking, business-destroying and productivity-crippling actions of the CFMEU. The revelations that came through Fairfax media or Nine's newspapers over recent months really weren't revelations at all. You would have to have had your head buried deep in the sand to be remotely surprised by all that was uncovered in relation to the behaviour of the CFMEU across Australia. Yet the Albanese government did indeed come out with 'Quelle surprise, oh my. Who knew that John Setka and the CFMEU were so bad? Who knew they were doing all of these terrible things?'

It has been on the record again and again. Indeed, the CFMEU's construction division has racked up around $19 million in fines and penalties, ordered by Australian courts, over the last eight years. They just treated it as a cost of doing business—a cost of doing business for them to continue to extract every possible concession they can in every possible workplace, not for the benefit of the workers but for the power of the union. That is the way that these officials have gone about their operation. That is why, at this moment in time, when a Labor government has been forced, dragged kicking and screaming, to take action to clean up the CFMEU, we must get it right.

These are the same Labor Party and the same Greens political party who voted against every possible effort, over the past decade and beyond, to clean up the CFMEU. When the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation came to the parliament, they opposed it. They fought to water it down and weaken its standing. When the Registered Organisations Commission legislation came to the parliament, they opposed it and they ensured every effort was made to weaken it and water it down. When the ensuring integrity legislation was brought to this parliament to ensure the integrity of union officials by ensuring that, if they were getting repeated criminal offences against them, they could no longer hold those offices, the Greens opposed it and, indeed, worked with parts of the crossbench to defeat it.

Australia would not be at this point if not for the obstinate opposition of those opposite over the last decade-plus in relation to the CFMEU. If they'd ensured the ABCC had real teeth—