Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

We heard from Senator Sheldon a lot about many things but nothing about the unlawful activities of the CFMEU—and that gives the game away. For 15 minutes Senator Sheldon provided us with rhetoric that didn't even mention once, didn't admit once, that our construction sites across Australia, where our schools are being built, hospitals are being built, highways are being built and new housing is being built—which we desperately need—are rife with intimidation, bullying, harassment and corruption due to the activities of the CFMEU construction division. Senator Sheldon didn't mention it once—not a single time.

When this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Removing Criminals from Worksites) Bill 2024 (No. 2), was first introduced by the coalition—or reintroduced, I should say—in 2019, in my first year in this place, we heard 39,000 words from the Labor Party in opposing this legislation. The reasons for this legislation were proven to be correct by the most recent events concerning the CFMEU, which the government has had to place into administration. In 2019, when we had this debate, in approximately 39,000 words those opposite in the Labor Party could only mention the CFMEU once—and that was probably a mistake. They mentioned the CFMEU once in 39,000 words. They talk about every other union—the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Transport Workers Union, the associated salary medical officers union in Tasmania—but not the CFMEU. Why? Because the CFMEU is the problem. The CFMEU construction division is the problem. The TWU is not the problem. The AMWU is not the problem. The associated salary medical officers union is not the problem. The problem is the construction division of the CFMEU.

Senator Sheldon talks about workplace health and safety. In my home state of Queensland, the workplace health and safety inspectors had to take protected industrial action so that they didn't have to go onto CFMEU controlled worksites—employees of the government regulator, the workplace health and safety inspectors. That's how bad it is in my home state of Queensland.

During the last sitting I referred to a very brave lady, Ms Tammie Palmer, whose son Ben committed suicide after coming home from a CFMEU controlled worksite. He was wearing the wrong T-shirt. This young man—a young Indigenous man, a First Nations man, who loved working in the construction industry—made the mistake of wearing the wrong T-shirt. So the CFMEU officials bullied him into a shed, where he stayed for a number of hours, and then his mental health went into a devastating decline, and he committed suicide that night. His mother has gone on the record talking about the effect of the bullying of the CFMEU.

So, don't come into this place and talk as if this is all about the CFMEU raising flags and doing this and that and there's nothing to be seen here. That is totally disingenuous. There's a major problem on our construction worksites. We see the economic cost in that the cost of building anything in this country has gone up by 30 or 40 per cent, and all of us suffer, because we don't get the hospitals, the schools and the highways that the Australian population needs, all because of the activities of the CFMEU construction division. And there's the human cost in terms of people like Ben, who took his own life after a day's work on a CFMEU controlled worksite.

Or, how's this? Geoffrey Watson SC, a renowned Australian expert on anticorruption—totally independent from our side of politics, and well regarded—released an interim report on allegations against the CFMEU in Victoria. Senator Sheldon didn't mention that once. We'll see if Senator Bilyk mentions the interim report by Geoffrey Watson SC in relation to allegations against the CFMEU in Victoria. Listen to this:

…the Victorian branch has been caught up in a cycle of lawlessness, where violence was an accepted part of the culture, and threats of violence were a substitute for reasoned negotiations

Those aren't my words. Those are the words of an independent senior counsel who's completed an interim report into the CFMEU. Senator Sheldon didn't mention it once. I'm sure Senator Bilyk's not going to mention it. I'll be impressed if she does. But I'm sure that, like everyone else in this place, she's got her driving instructions. I'll see if she does mention it.