Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion related to further revelations about the CFMEU's links with organised crime and the consideration of legislation as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in my name, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to further revelations about the CFMEU's links with organised crime and the consideration of legislation.

Let us be very clear about the legislation that the coalition is seeking to bring on today and pass through the Australian Senate. It is, of course, to restore the tough cop on the beat, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Removing Criminals from Worksites) Bill 2024.

Quite frankly, what we saw on 60 Minuteswere utterly vile revelations. Seriously, you had a health and safety rep—the irony of this person's title—standing there kicking a woman on a construction site. I cannot think of anything more shameful, more degrading and, quite frankly, more in need of this Senate coming together today and restoring the tough cop on the beat to ensure that the construction industry in Australia has half a chance of competing against organised crime.

Organised crime in Australia has infiltrated the CFMEU, is running the CFMEU and, in doing that, now controls the construction industry in Australia, and the Labor Party sit back and do nothing. We all know why. It is because in the time that Prime Minister Albanese has been leading the Labor Party the Labor Party has received from the CFMEU $11.5 million either in donations or in electoral support. What an absolute disgrace! Money talks in this country—dirty money flowing from the CFMEU, infiltrated by organised crime, into the Australian Labor Party. A very good question that needs to be asked is: given these ongoing revelations, is the Australian Labor Party going to return that money to the hardworking members of the CFMEU who, quite frankly, are not properly represented by the organised crime that is now allegedly infiltrating them?

This is what we saw on that Sunday night. We saw bikies perpetrating domestic violence on job sites for taxpayer funded projects. Someone kicking a woman played out on our TV screens across Australia. We stand here today willing to work with the government to bring on these two bills to restore the tough cop on the beat and ensure that there is legislation to remove these criminals from worksites. We all know that the government hasn't given us leave to do that, and we know why—because money talks. The money this government has taken from the CFMEU is the reason it refuses to do anything about it. But what is worse is that the first thing Mr Albanese did when he became Prime Minister of this country was to abolish the tough cop on the beat, the Australian Building and Construction Commission. And why did he do that? Because that was the No. 1 wish-list item for John Setka, the CFMEU and the ACTU. You have to be kidding me—the ABCC. I'm sure those on the other side will stand up and tell us how they were not successful. Well, of course they would! They have a financial interest in ensuring that there is no tough cop on the beat in the construction sector.

This is the reality that Australians face at the moment. The CFMEU is a modern-day mafia organisation. The culture of criminality and corruption is now so entrenched—and we saw it again on 60 Minutes last Sunday night—that it will never ever change, especially under a government that is still to this day completely, totally and utterly beholden to the CFMEU. There is only one party that will stand up, and that is the coalition, because we're not beholden to them.