Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment, Senator Abetz. I refer the minister to yet more reports in today's media of criminal elements involved in the building industry in my home state of Victoria. Can the minister inform the Senate of the government's response to such reports?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the distinguished Chair of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for that question. The government is deeply concerned that a company with extensive criminal links, KPI labour hire, is being awarded substantial work on the $1 billion Melbourne airport redevelopment. KPI employees have been reportedly charged with or convicted of a long list of serious offences: armed robbery, threats to kill, assaulting police and drug cultivation. The company's own director, Mr Ramsay, has an extensive criminal record including a conviction for unlawful assault. But KPI's links to the CFMEU are concerning.

According to an audit conducted by the Victorian Construction Code Compliance Unit, KPI was improperly awarded a labour hire contract as a direct result of pressure applied on the head contractor to give the job to KPI. And guess who applied that pressure on behalf of KPI, Senator McKenzie? None other than the CFMEU. Investigations also reveal that KPI employed a relative of Mick Gatto and other individuals with links to bikies. Let us be under no illusion: this is not an isolated incident. Over this past year, we have witnessed not a drop, not a trickle but a flood of disclosures revealing corruption, criminality and thuggery by the CFMEU. The culture of lawlessness identified by the Cole royal commission well over a decade ago continues to shamefully plague the building industry in Australia today. The government is wholly committed to restoring the rule of law to building sites across Victoria and the nation, and we call on the Senate to support us in that endeavour.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the minister advise the Senate what steps the government is taking to restore the rule of law to building sites across Victoria and Australia in general?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can inform Senator McKenzie that the government is taking immediate action to clean up the building industry in Victoria and indeed across Australia. Earlier this year we published an advance release of the Fair and Lawful Building Sites Code, which sets out the government's expected standards of workplace relations conduct by those contractors who want to perform work funded by the Commonwealth government. Any contractor who does not comply with the code will not be entitled to work on Commonwealth funded projects. This new code, together with a re-established Australian Building and Construction Commission, will stamp out the worst excesses of industrial relations lawlessness in the Australian building industry and will restore the rule of law to an industry too long plagued by a culture of lawlessness.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate of any obstacles to the government's commitment to clean up the building and construction industry?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is well known that the building industry, especially in Victoria, suffers the worse extremes of corruption, criminality and thuggery. It is therefore regrettable that the alternative Premier, Mr Daniel Andrews, refuses to condemn, and indeed even embraces, the single greatest proponent of such corruption, the CFMEU. Labor frontbencher Senator Cameron claimed last week that there was no evidence of criminal links with the CFMEU and cast aspersions on Victoria Police assistant commissioner Fontana. Labor is so desperate to defend the CFMEU that it will even stoop to using a frontbencher to attack the credibility of a police assistant commissioner. It is time for Labor—Mr Shorten and Mr Andrews—to stop riding with the outlaws. It is time for them to restore the rule of law and join us in that endeavour.