Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am standing here today to express concern about the standover and privileged role union bosses would play in the workplace with the election of a Rudd Labor government and the election of Labor candidates in my state of Tasmania. I believe the resurgence of union bosses and their hold over the Labor Party would be bad for Australia. It would threaten the sound economic climate which the Howard government, the business sector and the workforce have worked so hard to create and foster. There is no balance in the union movement’s view of Australian society. Their world is a culture of union power and intimidation versus productivity, where union bosses exhibit the very symptoms of exploitation and standover tactics which they claim are historically part and parcel of management in a capitalist society. I want to quote the workplace relations minister, the Hon. Joe Hockey, who put it so succinctly in the House of Representatives yesterday. He said:

… there is no room for any dissenting voice from the trade union bosses when it comes to Labor Party preselection … now they are getting rid of people of conscience and replacing them with more union bosses so that they can toe the union line.

I am concerned that a Rudd Labor government and its unhealthy alliance with the six Labor states and the two Labor territories would return Australia to the days of union domination of the workplace and a reduction in wages and family wealth, as we saw under the union accord arrangements between the ACTU and the Hawke and Keating governments.

The decline in rank and file union members in recent years from 16.8 per cent of the private sector workforce down to 15.2 per cent in the 12 months to August 2006 has been matched by the increase in ALP caucus members who have come from the ranks of the unions. One may ask what is wrong with a union background, and I say there is a place for unions in our society, but there is everything wrong with up to 80 per cent of the federal Labor caucus being ex union bosses—especially those who operated by way of strongarm tactics and intimidation as union thugs. What balance is there if most of your caucus has never run a business and has gained notoriety by being violently or passively anti business?

Almost 70 per cent—27 out of 40—of the ALP frontbench are former union officials. Fifty-five per cent—or 48 out of 88—of the ALP caucus are former union officials. In Tasmania the new union candidates include Kevin Harkins in Franklin, from the ETU; Jodie Campbell in Bass, from the Australian Services Union; and Catryna Bilyk from the Australian Services Union standing for the Senate. Just to name a few union bosses in this parliament, recently parachuted in you have Greg Combet from the ACTU, Bill Shorten from the AWU. The list goes on with Simon Crean, Martin Ferguson and Jennie George all formerly of the ACTU and, more recently selected, Don Farrell from South Australia. So you can see that the unions have contributed in large part to the representation of the Labor Party in this parliament, and the list will go on and the percentage will rise after the next federal election if they are elected. The unions have contributed the vast majority of Kevin Rudd’s $100 million election campaign war chest. I believe the Labor-union partnership have outspent and will outspend the coalition big time.

In my home state of Tasmania, the union standover boss Mr Kevin Harkins has won Labor endorsement for the seat of Franklin. It is known that Mr Harkins used threats and intimidation in his own party in the lead-up to preselection. His tactics worked on the other Labor candidate, who was scared off. Mr Harkins is such a one-eyed union boss and so epitomises the typical standover union heavy that even the incumbent Labor MHR, Harry Quick, cannot stand him. Mr Quick took the unusual step of referring a recent Harkins campaign pamphlet to the Australian Electoral Commission because in it Mr Harkins promoted himself as the elected member for Franklin. A fair concern from the sitting member, I would suggest. Mr Harkins sought to represent himself as the member for Franklin when he was not and is not. Harry Quick is that member. Mr Quick has showed good grace and support for the federal Liberal candidate, Vanessa Goodwin—for good reason, in my view. In an attack on the Harkins candidacy in Franklin, Mr Quick earlier this month also called for endorsed ETU officials or candidates with links to the ETU to be disendorsed or to have that endorsement reviewed. He did so after the federal leader Kevin Rudd ordered ETU official Dean Mighell to quit the ALP some two weeks ago.

Mr Harkins has a close relationship with Victorian ETU heavyweight Dean Mighell—the man Kevin Rudd used in his endeavours to manufacture an arms-length relationship with the unions. Now we have heard about an estimated $100,000 Mr Harkins holds in Victorian and Tasmanian ETU donations. I ask: has he repaid the union money as ordered by his federal leader, Kevin Rudd? Is the ALP satisfied the money was appropriated legally and properly for donating purposes? My state Liberal colleague and former Denison MHR Michael Hodgman QC says he has received a formal complaint from an ETU member that his hard-earned pay packet has helped pay for the $100,000 of election funding given to the Franklin Labor candidate, Kevin Harkins, without the union member’s consent. Were ETU members consulted or did they get the right to vote on whether such large sums of money were and should be donated to ALP candidates like Mr Harkins? Why has the Tasmanian Labor Party not paid it back? Mr Rudd ordered Dean Mighell to resign from the ALP and for all campaign contributions paid to Labor from the ETU to be repaid, whether it was based in Victoria or Tasmania. So what has happened? Surely Mr Harkins should immediately cease campaigning for the ALP while being employed and paid by the ETU or he should resign as the federal Labor candidate for Franklin. It is one or the other.

Mr Harkins promised an audit of the donations, but how long does it take? It has already been two weeks. Mr Rudd’s call for a return of the campaign donations is, in my view, a sham. It is a political stunt designed purely for the media and the TV cameras. How long does it take to complete an audit and return the moneys? The Rudd doctrine has no credibility. If Mr Harkins is going to ignore or subvert instructions by his leader in opposition then how would he behave as a Labor MHR with his boss as the Prime Minister? If Mr Harkins is still employed by the ETU, he should resign or resign as the endorsed Labor candidate for Franklin. On 30 May this year Mr Rudd said:

I’ve seen the reports of Mr Mighell’s comments in the newspaper today ... I find Mr Mighell’s remarks to be obscene at every level, and, therefore, unacceptable.

I’ve earlier this morning directed the National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party to obtain from Mr Mighell, his resignation from the Labor Party, and that resignation was received by us a short time ago.

On top of that, I’ve directed the National Secretary of the Labor Party to determine what, if any, campaign contribution has been made by Mr Mighell’s union to the federal campaign of the Labor Party, and I’ve directed the National Secretary to return any such monies.

Please explain: it has been two weeks. So much for his so-called tough approach on union leaders. I ask: where is the Rudd authority and where would he be if he were Prime Minister and subject to union domination?

Mr Harkins admitted on ABC radio with Tim Cox on 4 June that he has received financial assistance from the ETU and that he will pay it back. But he has not disclosed, identified or refunded the campaign contribution the ETU has paid to the Labor Party and he needs to come clean. What about contributions from the Tasmanian ETU? Has he, in fact, received donations from the combined Southern States Branch of the ETU, which is Victoria and Tasmania, or is he mentioning only the Victorian ETU as a way of using weasel words and being tricky about returning these donations? Mr Harkins needs to identify and refund all campaign contributions.

The Labor Party and the trade unions are in league, they are working hand-in-hand and they will do whatever it takes to defeat the Howard government, despite Mr Rudd’s thin protestations to the contrary. We have seen this with perfect clarity today with the uncovering of the ACTU’s 71-page federal election 2007 union political strategy manual. They will go to any lengths to spread lies and misrepresentation. They will say that they will be targeting marginal seats, including Bass and Braddon. It will cause us on this side to work all the harder for the truth to get out on the benefits of a stronger economy, more jobs and higher wages.

I want to return to Mr Harkins and his relationship, and that of his close colleague Dean Mighell, with his union—the ETU. This close relationship was evident a few years ago when the 2003 Cole royal commission reported how profits from the union’s redundancy and severance fund investments paid for a nice family home overlooking the Derwent River in Hobart that was once used as a residence by Mr Harkins. The inquiry was told that the ETU paid $202,560 for the home at Nottingham Court, Lindisfarne in Hobart from a trust fund set up using surplus funds derived from the industry’s PROTECT redundancy fund. The union imposed contributions to the fund from employers. The PROTECT fund formed part of a non-negotiable pattern enterprise bargaining claim which Mr Harkins forced on employers and contractors when he came to Tasmania. Mr Harkins embodies the return to old Labor which Kevin Rudd would preside over in government.

The Mercury newspaper disclosed and revealed on 6 March earlier this year in an article:

Labor’s candidate for the Tasmanian federal seat of Franklin, Kevin Harkins, was found guilty in a 2003 royal commission into the national building industry of “engaging in unlawful conduct”.

Commissioner Terence Cole found that Mr Harkins broke the law in July 2001 in his activities as Tasmanian secretary of the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union by trying to stop a private electrician without a union-endorsed work agreement entering a Hobart construction site.

Other evidence presented at the royal commission and accepted by Mr Cole found that Mr Harkins:

• Threatened to “sort out” building firms that did not always employ unionised labour and union-approved subcontractors.
• Froze a small company out of work after it refused to insist its workers sign a union-approved Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.
• Told construction contractors Fairbrothers he would block off the entrance to their site with “a truck in the middle of a concrete pour” to get their attention.

This is what we have to face. The Cole royal commission in 2003 found:

Harkins said, if necessary they would block off the entrance to the site with a truck in the middle of a concrete pour, however, nothing further happened.

On page 178 of the report, Commissioner Cole said that he was satisfied on the evidence before him that Darryn Scott, Site Manager for Vos Construction and Joinery Pty Ltd, and Kevin Harkins, Secretary of the CEPU, Allied Services Union of Australia and Vos Construction and Joinery Pty Ltd, had ‘engaged in unlawful conduct’. Yes, Commissioner Cole is on the record as saying that Mr Harkins has engaged in unlawful conduct. The Cole royal commission report goes on and on. It is quite expansive on the concerns that have been expressed about Mr Harkins. On page 170, it said:

Harkins then told Smith he would be doing everything in his power to prevent Parmic from obtaining work in the industry and it was now a matter of a ‘us against them’, ‘us’ being the union, and ‘them’ being Parmic.

Also on page 171 it says that Harkins also told Smith:

... the time was coming when subcontractors who had not signed a union agreement would not be working in the construction industry in Tasmania.

On page 174 it says:

Harkins told Killick he was temporarily relocating to Tasmania in order to ‘sort out’ ‘the local electrical contractors’... Harkins said that although he was sensitive to the low amounts of work in Tasmania, he was prepared to ‘kick heads’ in order to get results, and if necessary send over the mainland branch of the CEPU to ‘sort out’ locals on a regular basis. Harkins said he would target Fairbrother and its Hobart Silos Project if necessary to sort out TC Electrical Pty Ltd.

There we have it. There is a continuing role for unions in my view, but how far do we go? Labor’s policy document ‘Forward with Fairness’ states on page 14:

Under Labor’s system, bargaining participants will be free to reach agreement on whatever matters suit them.

That is carte blanche for the union movement to ensure a whole range of things in support of the union movement and union bosses having control in the workplace. The Labor Party wish to abolish AWAs and they wish to bring back unfair dismissal laws. This is all bad for small business. (Time expired)