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

There was nothing to see there. In fact, they've been saying that for decades.

We've been around this place long enough to remember estimates after estimates after estimates, when we were lucky enough to be on the government benches, where the current minister was the mouthpiece of the union movement, particularly of the CFMEU, in attacking the then minister and attacking Minister Cash for her 'gross misrepresentation of the CFMEU'—for just talking about the fact that they had been taken to court umpteen times, they had been fined X million dollars and a number of officials had faced jail time, if not other, lesser penalties, for their bullying behaviour, their threatening behaviour, their overt misogyny and their anticompetitive practices. This minister, when he wasn't a minister, was there defending the indefensible, attacking a government for putting in place sensible controls on an industry that everybody knew had problems. Literally everybody in the industry knew it, and everybody not in the industry knew it.

For the minister to then go on ABC Radio National and deny that those severe problems, which triggered this Labor government putting through legislation to put the CFMEU into administration, haven't forced up costs on the building and infrastructure sector—this is what he said under questioning from Patricia Karvelas:

I've had a bit of a look at this, Patricia, and I cannot find any evidence whatsoever to support that

But it doesn't take much work, Minister, to find evidence to support it. If there is threatening behaviour, if there are kickbacks being paid and if there is extortion going on, then just common sense alone will tell you that that sort of behaviour is going to force up costs in an industry. But there's plenty of evidence, going back over a long period of time, to show that CFMEU controlled construction projects cost more.

In the minister's home state of Queensland, the cost of building apartments on CFMEU controlled projects is 33 per cent more expensive. The economic analysis of the impact of the CFMEU Queensland EBA on Queensland apartment construction prices in 2024 found that CFMEU controlled apartment buildings took 50 per cent longer to build and cost, for an average two-bedroom apartment, almost $300,000 more to build.

It's almost unbelievable that the minister can't find this information. Apparently, there's no information about how these projects under the CFMEU are more expensive to build. The Master Builders in the industry gave evidence previously that the CFMEU forces up cost of construction by 30 per cent. Ernst & Young estimated that the abolition of the ABCC, which this government did, would result in a $35.4 billion decline in construction output by 2030 and $47½ billion reduction in economic activity, as higher costs and lower productivity act as a handbrake on other sectors. And it goes on and on.

I know I have colleagues who want to speak, so I'm not going to continue for long. But the fact is the evidence is legion and the evidence is ample. The evidence of the criminality, the kickbacks, the poor behaviour, the violence, the thuggery—it's there for all to see. It's on the court records, and anyone who denies it is quite frankly either ignorant or a fool.

This place shouldn't allow behaviour like this to go unremarked and uninvestigated—that is our job. It's our job to make sure, where we see things happening in our society that just aren't right, that we do something about them, and that's why this inquiry should go ahead.