Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

Leave granted.

At some point in the next few months, Australians will be asked to have their say on who they believe should hold government and, as a result, influence the day-to-day lives of millions across the country. Many people take their vote seriously, and they are right to do so. They also expect that candidates for office should treat the voice of voters seriously. In Australia, we have had over a century to refine the way that people get to cast their ballot. We have established a detailed process to ensure fair, transparent voting and to give voters the confidence that the election system has integrity.

Besides having responsibility for managing general elections, the Australian Electoral Commission is an important guardian within the democratic process of unions. It plays a vital role in ensuring that union members can feel that their vote is being validly cast in union elections. Recently the AEC had its role tested by people wishing to derail an election occurring within the New South Wales communications division of the CEPU. Fortunately, the AEC took strong steps to maintain the integrity of that ballot.

Today, I think it is important that extra steps are taken to shed light on the behaviour of those who do not value the voting rights of union members. On Friday, 1 June 2007 the ballot opened for various federal and state positions of the CEPU communications division. This division of the union represents postal and telecommunications workers. The AEC informed candidates that it intended to post ballots on this day. Just after 12 am on 1 June 2007, the AEC is believed to have lodged these ballot papers with Australia Post. The AEC ballot papers started arriving at the homes of Australia Post’s employees—CEPU members—less than 12 hours later. I must commend Australia Post because, for the first time that many can recall, a customer was able to mail their material early on exactly the same day that the end recipients received the mail. With nearly 10,000 AEC ballot paper envelopes being issued in New South Wales, a high volume of mail like this—as sensitive as this mail is—would ordinarily be processed through Australia Post’s state-of-the-art sorting machines. The envelopes would then be marked with a printed barcode detailing the date when the item was processed. It would even tell you which machine processed the mail—very impressive. However, CEPU members received envelopes clear of such markings, except for some members whose envelopes were machine marked and sorted on 31 May, not 1 June. I will return to that issue shortly.

On the same day—1 June—union members received another envelope. The envelope bore the logo of the CEPU and it had a return address marked on the front belonging to the CEPU’s New South Wales postal and telecommunications branch. Inside the envelope was a letter printed on union letterhead that urged a vote for the secretary of the New South Wales branch, Jim Metcher. It referred to a how-to-vote card titled ‘The Official CEPU Team’ which bore photos of the past and current officeholders of the union. It made disparaging reflections on Mr Metcher’s rivals, and it was signed by Mr Metcher. Many know that it is wrong to use union resources to urge a vote for a union candidate and that it is wrong to send election material using union envelopes and postage during an election. Mr Metcher knows this. Ordinarily he would be in strife, but for one thing: the material, the envelope, the letter, Jim Metcher’s signature and the how-to-vote are all fake. It was a fraud designed to make a reader think it was sent by Mr Metcher. On the same day as the fraudulent letters were issued, the AEC was informed of these dishonest acts. So on 1 June, CEPU members received the ballot papers posted on 1 June by the AEC, the fraudulent letter and the how-to-vote of another candidate, who is opposing Mr Metcher.

Mr Metcher posted his how-to-vote material in two batches: on Thursday 31 May he posted material bound for all members outside the Sydney region and on Friday 1 June he posted material for Sydney based members. When did Mr Metcher’s material arrive? A trickle appeared on Monday, but the bulk was processed and delivered well after rival applicants’ material had been received and considered by voters. In some regional areas, it took four working days for it to arrive despite it having been posted in advance. A few days after the first fraudulent letter was issued, another letter was received. Australia Post management knew of the letters in circulation as Mr Metcher had reported the fraudulent letters to one of Australia Post’s senior New South Wales executives.

I would be interested to know what Australia Post did to prevent acts of mail fraud in its system. From the perpetrator’s perspective, the letters were having the desired impact. I will quote from an email of a CEPU member:

I must apologise as I voted away from the normal team I normally vote on—which was your team—as I was swayed by the content of that letter ... The letter arrived amongst all other union voting information from all sides.

It looked legitimate and it gave the impression you were ... well, self-centred.

Hence the way I wanted to add my vote was polluted. I had up to this point in time received many different flyers which I did recognise as being slanderous.

The AEC was also notified of this dishonest act and it did not take long to respond. It issued a letter to all New South Wales voting members of the CEPU alerting them to this misleading material. Importantly, in the interests of members being able to cast a validly and properly informed vote, the AEC called on members to apply for a fresh vote if they believed that they had been misled by the fraudulent material. I understand that all candidates in the New South Wales branch elections were informed that the AEC would be taking this action.

So what happened next? On the same day as the AEC letter landed in members’ letter boxes, a third fraudulent letter accompanied it. Disturbingly, Australia Post was complicit in the processing and delivery of these three, separate fraudulent items. After the third fraudulent mail-out the CEPU, at both state and national level, wrote to Australia Post to request its assistance on behalf of a paying customer to clamp down on this fraud. I seek leave to table the letters to Australia Post. I have circulated those.

Leave granted.

Any customer, particularly a small business, would be horrified to think that someone would duplicate their business logo and approach their customers and misrepresent their business. What was Australia Post’s response? I understand that Australia Post has still failed to act in the over 72 hours since it was formally notified—a terrible signal for any customer concerned about mail fraud.

But this all does not end here. There is one final matter I wish to raise. Apparently, in mid-May an advertisement was placed in the employment section of the Sydney Morning Herald. The advertisement called for people to apply for the position of doorknockers with a ‘market research’ company. Applicants were handed a company document on letterhead bearing the name ‘Australian Market Research’, whose advertised address is ‘Level 1, 8-10 Palmer Street, Parramatta, phone (02)85691801, fax (02)85690157, ABN: 28 792 929 309’. It also contained the heading ‘Urgent: market researchers required this weekend Queen’s birthday long weekend (9-11 June)’ addressed to applicants’ names and addresses. A yellow coloured instruction document addressed ‘Commercial-in-confidence’ was provided to applicants who attended the seminar training. The following is of particular interest. This document was provided to applicants with a kit containing a union candidate’s how-to-vote pamphlets—that of Mr Gary Jenkins, who is standing as a candidate for New South Wales P&T branch secretary. The kit also contained Gary Jenkins’s business cards, a sheet of 30 CEPU member names and addresses, and a large express post envelope.

Why the express post envelope? An applicant for this position gave an in-depth explanation of the entire process. The applicant advised that he responded to the job advertisement and attended the training seminar at the Rosehill Bowling Club on 1 June 2007, the same day that the CEPU ballot opened. The applicant received $60 in cash, in addition to a further $20 because the company directors were one hour late in conducting the training session at the advertised time. This applicant received the full kit and 30 names and addresses of CEPU members living in Lidcombe, Western Sydney. Applicants were told to attend these addresses and approach CEPU members to collect their ballot papers. An express post envelope addressed to AMR was issued to doorknockers to help them quickly return these ballot papers.

I have to admit, I am surprised applicants were given an express post envelope, because it appears that anything to do with the CEPU election gets same-day delivery service from Australia Post management! Sensing that something was amiss, this job applicant advises that he did not contact any of the members. In fact, the only people he did contact were the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading and the Australian Electoral Commission, as he believed the AMR company to be of a suspicious nature. But he also knew that the practice of collecting AEC ballot papers from CEPU members at their homes is prohibited by the AEC.

Who is behind this front organisation, Australian Market Research—a company with a supposed national focus that concentrates squarely on union voters in Western Sydney? A thorough investigation of Australian Market Research—AMR—and its owners is very revealing. AMR is not a listed company with the Australian Securities Investment Commission. So who runs it? The Australian business number has belonged to a sole trader entity, Mr Peter N Jones, since 2004. In these elections, Mr Jones is running as a candidate for assistant secretary of the New South Wales P&T branch. He was, in fact, formerly employed by the CEPU before being dismissed for serious and wilful misconduct. So Mr Jones is hardly a long-time market researcher. If you visit Peter Jones’s AMR headquarters at level 1, 8-10 Palmer Street, Parramatta, what do you find? Signage belonging to another company—Bowdens Group Water Servicing. I am told they are an accredited supplier to Sydney Water Corporation. Sydney Water once employed Mr Jones’s wife, but I doubt Sydney Water or its contractors are supporting the housing of AMR’s national headquarters.

After the 2003 CEPU elections, Mr Jones appeared before the AIRC, where the commission had reason to note that Mr Jones had admitted that his actions in previous CEPU elections were ‘dishonest’. During the case even Mr Jones conceded under cross-examination that some of his anti Jim Metcher material was ‘misleading’ and ‘inaccurate’. Let me read for a moment from the AIRC decision, where it was put to Mr Jones that his election material contained lies. Mr Jones responded:

I think a lie is a strong word but I concede that people might apply that to it, yes.

That is page 6 of the decision. The decision contains transcripts from the hearings where the CEPU’s lawyer pointedly asks:

You lied?

Mr Jones:

Well, yes, I agree with you ...

This is an admission from a man who wants to be elected second in charge of the largest state branch of the CEPU’s communications division. In late 2003, it is understood that Mr Jones approached federal minister for health, Tony Abbott, no doubt to provide information about the CEPU, and Mr Abbott helpfully referred him to the then the workplace relations minister, Kevin Andrews. That was one of the letters I have tabled. It is hard to tell what transpired. However, it is clear that Mr Jones may have been inspired by the federal government’s support in establishing shell companies to help undermine unions and their members—reminiscent of their efforts on the Australian waterfront in 1998. The more you dig, the more it becomes clear that AMR is just a front hatched to help employ people on cash retainers for the purpose of collecting AEC ballot papers from members at their homes during the election.

And it gets worse. At the same time as AMR’s doorknockers were being urged to undertake prohibited behaviour in collecting ballot papers, a wave of telephone calls swamped CEPU members at their homes from 2 June. The calls were made on behalf of Mr Jenkins’s team and the callers urged members to cast their votes straightaway, that weekend. Of course it was pure coincidence that these calls to action were being made at the same time as the how-to-votes of Mr Jenkins’s rival, Mr Metcher, were sitting collecting dust in Australia Post docks. The calls were being made from an office in Epping in north-western Sydney in the electorate of Bennelong. The number belongs to Epilepsy Action. No doubt this organisation does important work for an important cause, and I suspect the principals of this organisation would be horrified to know that they were being drawn into a grubby plan designed to mislead or potentially disenfranchise voters.

Obviously some senators opposite might take perverse delight in everything I have detailed today. The shrewder ones will not. Naturally those opposite relish the idea of any union member being denied the opportunity to have a say in a ballot that affects their working lives. But those opposite should be very careful before casting stones, because it appears they are not free of sin when it comes to this messy affair. Of course I would totally understand the disbelief of those members of the public listening in or reading this speech who would question whether the Liberal Party would maintain an active interest in any union’s electoral process, especially this union, the CEPU.

But know this: in 1994 the Liberal Party’s then industrial relations shadow minister mailed out a letter to every CEPU member urging them to support a Liberal Party ticket running in those elections. It is now a matter of public record that the shadow minister was none other than the current Prime Minister, Mr Howard. Given the track record of the Liberal Party, the fact that it also has influence over the board of management of a government business enterprise that has an interest in these elections—Australia Post—and seeing the extraordinary efforts being undertaken and money spent to seize control of this union, it would be remiss not to have an in-depth investigation into this entire affair.

It would be hard to believe that all of these matters that I have referred to today occurred within the space of just over one week. But time will catch up with people who want to distort the legitimate efforts of genuine members wanting to have their fair say in the future of their union. That is because, apart from matters described by the applicant, all of the above matters have now been reported to not only the AEC but the Australian Federal Police, who were also notified of all of this on Friday, 8 June 2007. These are serious issues, because what underpins these actions is a contemptuous motive and misguided belief that, by creating so much turmoil and confusion, the perpetrators of these acts are encouraging union members to throw up their hands and not vote at all. They hope these members will refuse to have a say in their union’s future simply out of frustration with these immature and dishonest tactics. The behaviours of these perpetrators are of themselves antidemocratic. Make no mistake: every time a union member refuses to vote in this election out of frustration, they help place wider smiles on the faces of those people who do not have the members’ or the union’s interests at heart. I urge all CEPU members to defend their right to have a say in their organisation and their working futures and to cast a vote knowing that the people trying to stop them from exercising this democratic right will be caught and dealt with appropriately.