Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Well, here we are: another day, another minister standing up running a protection racket for the CFMEU here under the Albanese government. They like to think that, because they've put an administrator in charge, we can now throw the Harry Potter invisibility cloak over the corruption issues within the construction industry in this country. But meanwhile they pay their preselectors, they take the donations, they line their pockets, they take their Senate seats—thank you very much, captains of the construction industry—and we see, in Victoria alone, $5 billion of cost blowouts for infrastructure projects.

It is not just the men and women working in this industry day in, day out who are subjected to the horrific behaviour on construction sites around this country that was exposed by the 60 Minutes investigation and by the excellent journalism of the Sydney Morning Herald and Age, including Nick McKenzie—brave stuff, because these are very, very dangerous people, and threatening people's lives is something they do quite easily and willingly. So well done to our journalists. But, aside from the men and women who are being subjected to this type of behaviour on construction sites around the country, it is our infrastructure pipeline of funding where the federal taxpayer is being ripped off. I wrote to Catherine King, the minister responsible, on 17 July 2024, when these revelations first were made and we found out that another $5 billion had to be shovelled to Victoria, not for one more kilometre of road or one more railway station but because of cost blowouts—and we didn't know why.

I wrote to the federal minister and said: 'Can you assure me, on behalf of the Commonwealth taxpayer, that this money is not going to the CFMEU and not going to organised crime? And how do you know?' I got a lovely letter back from the minister—and I foreshadow that if the chamber allows me I'll be tabling that letter—wherein she told me that she has directed her state and territory counterpart ministers to account for all their dollars. But it would seem, despite the administrator being appointed and despite Catherine King's explanations that she had it all under control, that it's not all under control. I actually had to write to her last week to ask her whether the Victorian government had complied with her direction about funding, what action the Victorian government and the federal government have taken with respect to the conduct that has been exposed again by 60 Minutes and Nick McKenzie and fellow journalists, and what measures Catherine King initiated to satisfy herself that there had been no improper or unlawful conduct on Commonwealth funded construction sites in Victoria. As yet, there has been silence—silence from the minister.

What we know on our side of politics is that this is not just restricted to Victoria. This is not only a Victoria's Big Build problem. We saw evidence to this parliament that construction costs in Queensland had skyrocketed in excess of 30 per cent simply because of the involvement of the CFMEU. That is a fact. That means the Olympics infrastructure will cost more. That means the Bruce Highway safety upgrades will cost more. Australians are getting less for their tax dollar because of this unholy alliance between the Australian Labor Party, the CFMEU and organised crime.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Stop being apologists for this behaviour, and stand up. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. You've been given the evidence by us, by auditors, by whistleblowers, by construction owners and by the ABCC, and you've done nothing. You do nothing. You stand up in this chamber time and time again, take their money and their votes for your preselections and do nothing against this criminality.