James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The title of this bill before the Senate today is the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Removing Criminals from Worksites) Bill 2024 (No. 2). It's a pretty 'does what it says' type of bill: we're going to remove criminals from worksites. Yesterday in my office I had some students from Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast: Hugo, Charlotte, Enzo, Mia, Ella, Sophie, Evie, Maya, Noah, Ethan, Lily and Harry. Those students would be able to tell everybody in this chamber what this bill actually means: removing criminals from worksites. It's a bit of a no-brainer. If it's a no-brainer to students from Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast, you would think it would be a bit of a no-brainer to the Labor Party, to the Greens and to the left-wing members of the crossbench. But, sadly, no. This very sensible bill is being opposed by the left side of politics.

Now, why would the Labor Party and the Greens want to run a protection racket for criminals? Well, I can't really answer that question. I think that's a question that should be put to the Labor Party and the Greens. Why do they want to protect criminals on worksites across Australia? Well, thinking out loud, it might be to do with the $6.2 million of donations that the CFMEU have given to the Labor Party, and the other millions of dollars of donations that other unions who are under the cloud of—let's put it bluntly—criminal behaviour have given to the Labor Party and the Greens. So we've got a protection racket here, where the Left side of politics is willing to turn a blind eye to the worst type of human behaviour that takes place on workplaces across Australia.

Now, I'm going to use some language here—and I won't use the full language, because it would upset the standing orders, those who are listening and those students from the Gold Coast who were in my office yesterday. This is what is happening on worksites across Australia. One CFMEU official threatened the owners of an Indigenous labour hire firm, saying, 'I'll F-ing take your soul and I'll rip your F-ing head off.' Wow. We don't hear the Labor Party coming out and condemning that, do we? We don't hear Labor cabinet ministers coming out and condemning such behaviour, do we? This type of behaviour is common on worksites across Australia where the CFMEU is present. It is a criminal organisation that has been infiltrated by bikie motorcycle gangs. You might think, 'Oh, they're not that bad, are they?' These motorcycle gangs are the worst of the worst. They trade in drugs, they trade in people, they trade in misery and now they trade in workers rights.

This side of parliament believes in the right of Australians to join a union or not join a union. Indeed, in my home state of Queensland, I support competition amongst the unions, which is why I'm a strong supporter of the red unions. I'm a strong supporter of those workers who wish to set up their own industrial organisations, like the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland and the Teachers Professional Association of Queensland. I support them setting up their own unions and conducting their own workplace negotiations with their employers, rather than the current system with this corporatist approach where the Labor Party and their financial backers, the unions, run a closed shop in terms of industrial issues but also in terms of protecting each other when allegations of criminal behaviour come forward.

This bill is all about ensuring that those people who engage or have engaged in criminal behaviour do not go on our worksites across Australia. Our worksites should be safe places for Australians to go and work, earn money and go home and sleep safely at night. Instead, we've got a Labor Party who endorse this culture of fear and this code of silence, where people who speak out are called dogs or rats. We have people like John Setka, who the Labor Party have only recently disowned in relation to his conduct on worksites and in workplaces across Australia, conduct that is ongoing to this day. Yet the Labor Party had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar of understanding of the culture of criminality that exists within the CFMEU.

It's fascinating when you hear the left side of politics get up in this chamber and around the country and talk about fairness and equity and equality. But that never applies to the victims of union thuggery. It doesn't apply to the victims of union criminality. Why is that? I go back to 6.2 million reasons why. It's the money that this criminal organisation, the CFMEU, has given to the Labor Party, not over the last decade or the last 20 years but since Anthony Albanese has been Prime Minister. Since Anthony Albanese has been Prime Minister, the CFMEU has given $6.2 million to the Labor Party. What do they get for that? Obviously they get an obsequious prime minister, a prime minister who had a whistleblower come to his office 10 years ago and inform him of issues within the CFMEU. What did that then minister and leading member of parliament do? He duckshoved it, he hospital passed it and he passed it on to someone else, because it was not his problem. Well, Prime Minister, the standard that you walk past is the standard that you accept. A decade ago, you walked past someone coming to you with serious allegations concerning criminality within the CFMEU, so for you to suddenly decide in the last month or two, in some Damascus-like eruption of innocence, that there issues within the CFMEU is quite frankly not believable.

It is not believable that the Labor Party abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission—firstly, when this weak prime minister was leader; and secondly, when he was a cabinet minister. They have done it twice. In 2007, when Labor won, they abolished it with the connivance of their preference swappers, the Greens. Then, just recently after the 2022 election, they again abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission. They abolished the cop on the beat. Why did they do that? It's the political equivalent of brown paper bags being passed under the table—$6.2 million passed from the CFMEU to the Labor Party. One of those conditions of those donations and the support to the Labor Party from this criminal organisation was for the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. If there is anything that the National Anti-Corruption Commission should be looking into, it should be the relationship between the Labor Party and the CFMEU and the relationship between the Labor Party taking donations from a criminal organisation and then putting into practice, actually enacting, the wishes of that criminal organisation through passing a bill in this parliament to abolish the ABCC.