Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We've seen plenty of criticism of the ABCC. As I've said, there are years and years and years worth of Senate estimates transcripts on this issue. The kinds of cases, the minor cases that I was talking about, were not addressing those significant problems that we see. They were not addressing the substantive issues on the ground—nothing, nothing at all. It was just an ideological waste of time and money.

The ABCC ran for seven years, and in that time it recovered just $5.9 million in unpaid wages. In contrast, the Fair Work Ombudsman, an institution much better suited to the role, managed to recover over half a billion dollars a year across two years. That is a billion dollars recovered by the Fair Work Ombudsman and $5.9 million recovered by the ABCC. Seriously? What a waste of time! So, yes, we abolished it. We are very, very proud of that.

In those seven years, there were headlines, there were arguments about stickers on hats, there were arguments about cups of tea, there was concern about trying to put women's bathrooms on worksites for the growing number of women that we have in the construction industry—and they are doing a fine job, too. Not one thing did the ABCC or the coalition government, when they were in power, do to deal with any criminal activity in certain parts of the CFMEU. They're all standing up here this morning, all the coalition people, one by one, telling us about criminal activity and bagging out the CFMEU in its totality, not just in the areas that there may be some wrongdoing in, but not once did they do anything about any criminal activity. They can stand there and bag us out for whatever they like. The facts—

Debate interrupted.