Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd suggest that Senator Scarr listen to some more of this speech because he might learn something. If you listen, you might even do the right thing. Making it an offence to fly a Eureka flag or have a union sticker on your hat—you can see where this is going. You know where they're at. It gives Mr Dutton a blank cheque to deregister trade unions on a whim on the most ridiculous grounds. That's what they're up to. As the Centre for Future Work noted in its submission to the ensuring integrity bill:

When union activities that would be considered both normal and legitimate in most countries are prohibited (including things like organising strikes, encouraging workers to join, collecting dues, protesting, opposing employer measures deemed unfair, displaying union symbols and flags, and so on), a perverse and self-fulfilling dynamic is set in motion: by defining normal union activity as criminal, unions automatically become criminal organisations, thus seemingly justifying still further intrusions, restrictions, and penalties.

What they're really after is normal activities. It's not what they're trying to put up here, what they're lying about and what they're misrepresenting. They're actually about normal activities. That's the scope of what they're doing in this bill.

It's plain as day what the strategy is here, isn't it? It's to make basic trade union activities illegal and make breaking those laws grounds to deregister the entire union. The breaches of the law, as the ensuring integrity inquiry heard, could be as minor as paperwork mistakes. The dissenting report reads:

For example, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation … Tasmanian branch, which is a small organisation that has difficulty with the current level of regulatory burden imposed on them, is often struggling to meet reporting deadlines. The penalties for non-compliance and the threat of deregistration are far too heavy handed …

The CEO, Ms Lara Giddings, told the inquiry:

… We are only a very small union body—in fact, we have around 336 members of our union here in Tasmania—and we have an annual budget of around $3,300.

…   …   …

The reality is that a budget of $3,300 per annum doesn't even cover the cost of my role as executive director. We have a conjoint agreement with AMA Tasmania to provide these services …

This is not uncommon. In fact, many unions rely on volunteers to help with the administration function of the union. UnionsACT secretary Alex White told the ensuring integrity inquiry back in 2019 that the ACT had 33,000 union members and 24 unions affiliated with UnionsACT. He said:

… All of the unions affiliated with UnionsACT have active rank-and-file member involvement in the governance of their unions. The vast majority of these members are volunteers and receive no remuneration.

So, how can you possibly make the case that a paperwork mistake by a volunteer should result in the disqualification or deregistration of the entire union? It shows the intent of those opposite is really to finish off the job they have been working on for decades and to kill trade unions altogether. So, there's the issue of ridiculous penalties for minor breaches.

Then there's the issue of ridiculous penalties for justified breaches. Since before Federation, unions have been at the forefront of fighting for safer workplaces. At times, that has involved activity that would now be considered illegal. Take, for example, evidence given to the ensuring integrity inquiry by the then national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Paul Bastian. As the dissenting report says, he:

… gave evidence that in the history of that union, it had been necessary to take industrial action that would now be considered unprotected, and under this bill would be grounds for deregistration of the union and disqualification of its officers, in order to secure compensation entitlements from James Hardie in instances where workers and members of the public developed debilitating and fatal disease after exposure to asbestos.

Mr Bastian told the inquiry:

On 21 December, after a concerted campaign, James Hardie finally reached … agreement with the ACTU, Unions New South Wales, victims groups represented by the tireless Bernie Banton and the New South Wales government. We had secured … uncapped compensation for victims of asbestos … $4.5 billion into a compensation fund that was originally only given $293 million. We achieved justice because unions and victims groups engaged in an escalating series of protests, work stoppages, work bans, boycotts, marches, investor activism and intensive political lobbying. It is beyond question that this campaign for sufferers of asbestos diseases made Australia a better, safer and more just place.

Those opposite tried to introduce laws to criminalise campaigning against asbestos or campaigning against engineered stone. We saw that before. Those opposite even make the lawyer who proudly defended asbestos companies, Julie Bishop, their deputy leader. Ms Bishop was passionate about denying access to compensation to victims who were dying from asbestos exposure. She was just as passionate as Mr Dutton is now about making campaigning against issues like asbestos grounds for closing entire unions.

The ensuring integrity inquiry also heard from Charles McKay from the Transport Workers Union and how he took unprotected industrial action to save the lives of transport workers. He said:

In the cash-in-transit industry it's pretty obvious that we carry guns, because obviously what we carry is sought after by a lot of other people in the community. Unfortunately, we had a spate of attacks around 1994-95—and again in the early 2000s … We had a lot of concern, certainly, from the workers and, more importantly, from their families. You've got to remember that if families see somebody killed they don't want their husband to go out there the next day and be the one who is delivering money and who comes home in a bag.

We had a series of meetings with the companies. Bear in mind that we were meeting with our company and that our members at Brambles were meeting with their company. We basically tried to have some meetings about safety and some of the issues surrounding the incidents. To cut a long story short, we went on an eight- or nine-day strike.

… in my 25 years as a senior delegate with Armaguard we never ever took strike action for one dollar in wages; it was only over safety and security for our members … Our members were fearful of going out for their jobs. We were doing it for a safety strike. We had a situation where the main clients of both our companies were financial institutions and their only concern was that the money be delivered on the day and time that they required. They were set times and set days, so all you had to do was follow a truck out of a yard and follow him on his rounds, because the bank or financial institution had said, 'We want this at eight,' or, 'We want this at 10.' The whole thing was focusing not on safety but on getting huge amounts of money to financial institutions.

…   …   …

The eight- or nine-day strike was an unprotected action, but our members basically were scared to go out without proper safety conditions. Conditions changed after that.

So we're looking at action that, under this bill, could see the entire union deregistered; that is, the integrity bill that has been put up previously by those opposite. And it wasn't even about money. It wasn't about new contracts or saving the lives of people who were literally being hunted and murdered by armed gangs.

The last point I will make, about how offensive and absurd this bill is, is about the different way Mr Dutton wants to treat unions and big businesses. Unions are not the equivalent of big businesses. They are not-for-profit, they are small and they are overseen by elected officials—many of whom are volunteers. Those opposite have smacked them time and time again with restrictions and regulations far beyond the highest-paid directors of the biggest businesses in the country. Take their mate Alan Joyce—someone who oversaw the largest illegal outsourcing in Australian history. There is absolutely nothing stopping Mr Joyce becoming a CEO or director at any other large company. Take the executives of the largest companies, like BHP, CBA and Woolworths—all of whom have been caught engaging in massive wage theft cases. There is nothing stopping their highly-paid executives continuing in their jobs or getting jobs elsewhere. This bill should be, rightly, rejected a fourth time.