Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024 (No. 2) and I thank Senator Michaelia Cash very much indeed for bringing the bill before the Senate to consider. It is a bill that ought to be supported by everyone in this place. I recognise the contribution of Senator Sheldon, someone I have a great deal of respect for. But I've got to say, in this instance he is wrong when he asserts that those on this side don't want to see workers represented in workplaces. There is a very legitimate role for unions in workplaces that operate according to the law and that operate in a respectful way in workplaces, and I think it would be hard to find anyone on this side who would disagree with that fact. But the assertion that we somehow don't want to see workers represented, see their rights represented in workplaces, is an absolute fallacy and an untruth, and it is not something that is really to the point of what this bill is about.

This bill is about restoring integrity on construction workplaces—worksites that, as Senator Sheldon was saying, are very dangerous. Obviously the environment of these construction sites requires safety and requires having measures in place to ensure that they do operate safely. But these workplaces have also had a history of involvement of a militant union, a corrupt union, that has been taking advantage of its workers and not properly representing them in the way they ought to—in a lawful, sound way. So this bill is about restoring that justice, restoring the proper operation and oversight of these workplaces to ensure that these workers are provided with protection and indeed that the Australian people can see the value of this, without the interference of unions, which would increase the costs of construction projects. This is important. It's a very good bill. It's a sound bill. It's a bill that ought to be, as I said, supported by everyone here in this place.

Senator Sheldon said that we were brought, kicking and screaming, to support the legislation on the administrator. That's another fallacy; that's another joke. It's a bit like a scene out of Monty Python—'nothing to see here; it's just a flesh wound'. The issues that have been occurring on these work sites across Australia are nothing to really—I'm going to take you through some of those instances of the thuggery and the corruption and the unlawfulness of the CFMEU that is occurring and has historically occurred over a long period of time. There are serious issues that need to be dealt, and so for Senator Sheldon to say we were dragged, kicking and screaming, to support that legislation—no; we wanted to actually fix your legislation. And we did.

The amendments brought into that administration bill were sound and are enabling the administrator to operate with the transparency and the powers that he needs to be able to root these issues out and to provide the administration that was obviously necessary. If we'd just let you ram the legislation through, if we'd let you get it through, we wouldn't have seen the unlawfulness dealt with, we wouldn't have seen the corruption dealt with, we wouldn't have seen the transparency that was needed back in this place dealt with. Through the amendments that we were able to bring, we brought some integrity, via that bill, to that administrator to ensure that it was able to operate with the powers that it needed.

Anyway, this bill deals with a discredited union, the CFMEU. The reason it's discredited, and I think this government is in many ways discredited, is because the abolition of the ABCC was the want and the wish of the CFMEU. It was one of the first pieces of legislation that came into this term of parliament. Once the Prime Minister was sworn in down there at Government House, one of the first things he did when we got back here, after the election, was to abolish the ABCC. It shows the government's priorities.

The ABCC was the fair cop on the beat. It ought to have had even more powers. Some of the things they say, like criminal investigations were not able to be seen all the way through, is because the ABCC didn't have those powers. This bill that Senator Cash has brought here actually gives those powers to the ABCC, provides the ABCC, or a future construction commission, to be able to prosecute issues so that they're properly dealt with.

Now, the Prime Minister was warned of these issues all the way back in 2022. The AFR reports that Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister of Australia, was told of union thuggery in 2022. There's an article in AFR. Then you have the Canberra Times saying that self-serving CFMEU leaders 'ruined the union'. That's what's happening. That's what we're seeing. That's what the Canberra Times is reporting. You see the AFR is also reporting that 'CFMEU deals put union in bed with bikies and the underworld'. An investigation reveals the relationships that have vaulted companies with links to criminals into favoured positions at the nation's building sites. It has to be dealt with. The Guardian reports that the 'CFMEU administrator moves for "clean sweep" of union superfund directors at Cbus'. It goes on and on and on and on.

The government pretend these issues that have been brought forward through that fantastic investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Nine papers are news to them, that they've only just heard about it for the first time. They pretend that it's news, that this is a recent revelation. But we know that the work of the ABCC was revealing time and time again serious cases of unlawfulness, serious cases of thuggery, serious cases of intimidation on construction work sites across the country. These are not new issues. These are issues that workplaces have been dealing with, that construction companies have been dealing with and that the owners of these construction projects have been dealing with. They want to see the efficient delivery of their construction projects but, because of the interference, thuggery and unlawfulness that is occurring on worksites, they've seen increased costs. There is an opportunity for the government to own up to this and deal with it. The administrator is one thing—that's good—but we need to see the restoration of the ABCC. We need to see the restoration of integrity and a reduction in the cost of construction projects across this country.

We know why the government, those opposite, come in here and defend the CFMEU. It's because they get the donations. The rivers of gold that flow into their campaigns primarily flow—you only need to look at the AEC's donation records—from the CFMEU. It was $6.4 million, I believe, prior to the last election. That is an extraordinary sum of money. The Liberal Party does not get anywhere near that money from any business, any single organisation—nowhere near it. You are talking exponentially greater sums of money that come through. And we know that's how their preselections are dealt with. Senator Sheldon was talking about Senator Bragg as if his preselection was controlled by the BCA. That's just absurd. They're not members of the Liberal Party. That organisation is not intrinsically linked in the way the CFMEU is within the Australian Labor Party. The proposition is absolutely absurd. But we know that that's what's happening. We know that that is why the defence is run. We know why the protection racket is run. It's because the rivers of gold, their preselections and their positions in cabinet are determined by what union they're part of and what faction they're in. It's not even a question of a Left or Right ideological position; it's whether you're a Left union or a Right union that determines whether or not you're going to be on the front bench. It's ridiculous. That is why they come in here and defend this. That is why they come in here, Madam Acting Deputy President, and defend the CFMEU. It's because they are absolutely wedded and indebted to the CFMEU, and that needs to be dealt with.

When the Albanese government abolished the ABCC in 2022, Master Builders Australia warned:

There are no sound grounds to abolish the ABCC or divert from the long-standing bipartisan approach of maintaining special industrial relations laws for the building and construction industry.

They said:

The work of the ABCC is not yet done and its removal will undo the significant improvements it has delivered for our building and construction industry.

MBA also found that, between 2016 and January 2022, '80 per cent of the ABCC's litigations involved some form of unlawful industrial action'. It said:

The ABCC has been influential in changing behaviour and upholding the law in the industry, especially given widespread exposures to various forms of industrial action (almost 70% of construction businesses surveyed had experienced industrial action in the past four years).

Despite this—despite a key industry stakeholder telling the government what the consequences would be if it removed the ABCC from the building and construction landscape—the government still went ahead and abolished it.

As I said, the consequences of that are that we have unlawful behaviour continuing, but we also have increased costs imposed upon building and construction sites right across the country. That means hospitals are more expensive to build. It means that roads, bridges, freeways and tunnels are more expensive to build. It means that train lines are more expensive to build. It means that schools are more expensive to build. Who pays for that? The Australian people pay for it. The taxpayers of this country are paying for that. The costs of construction projects like residential construction and high-rise buildings, which we desperately need to address the housing crisis, have gone up. Costs are up. Why? It's because of the corruption and the impositions that are put on these projects for often frivolous issues, like the right contractor not being selected and so the CFMEU get in there and disrupt it to make sure that their friends and their contract end up with the project. These are the sorts of things that go on and they've been going on forever. And those opposite act like it's the first time you are hearing about it. But this is a major issue.

Those opposite tell us that the ABCC only dealt with frivolous issues. They tell us that they only dealt with minor issues that really were wasting the time of the regulator and wasting the time of the CFMEU. Let me read out just one case. In Senate estimates, we asked about a particular case that was before the ABCC before it was abolished. It was in relation to a $428,250 fine that was imposed for breaches of workplace laws at the Adelaide Airport. We asked if we could get a little bit of information about this, and let me read into Hansard what the ABCC said to us in estimates:

The decision was handed down by the Federal Court on 13 August 2021, penalising the CFMMEU and six officials $428,250 for making misrepresentations about the requirement to show entry permits, refusing to follow directions and acting in an improper manner during the $165 million redevelopment of terminal 1 at Adelaide Airport. In that case, the court found that while on site, two officials, Desmond Savage and Te Aranui Albert, repeatedly abused a construction employee, with one or both saying, 'Eff you, I'm not dealing with you,' 'You're an effing waste of space,' 'He's a piece of shit,' 'You're an effing idiot'—

And, now that the ABCC's gone, those sorts of practices are able to continue in workplaces across Australia without any cop on the beat dealing with that sort of nonsense, often against women and inspectors in workplaces, and this lot over here stand in the way of the ABCC being restored. (Time expired)