George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following address in reply be agreed to.

To His Excellency the Governor-General

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY—

We, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign and to thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.

This is the 29th time in history that a new session of parliament has been called after the parliament was prorogued. As His Excellency has just told us, the reason for recalling the parliament

is to enable it and, in particular, the Senate to give full and timely consideration to two important parcels of industrial legislation—the bills to provide for the re-establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and the bill to improve the governance and transparency of registered organisations.

As the Governor-General also said, the government

regards these measures as crucial to its economic plan for promoting jobs and growth, and managing the transition of our economy from one reliant on the mining construction boom to a more diversified economy.

The ABCC bills again aim to do what the coalition promised before the last election—to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission as a guardian of the rule of law, which not one but two royal commissions have now recommended as a necessary response to the lawlessness and thuggery that is endemic in the construction sector. Dozens of Federal Court cases support this view. The government's first attempt to re-establish the ABCC was defeated in this Senate on 17 August 2015. As the Governor-General reminded us, the ABCC bills had been foreshadowed in Dame Quentin Bryce's speech opening the new parliament in November 2013. They were originally introduced in the House of Representatives on 14 November 2013, and on the same day referred by this Senate to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, with the opposition giving notice that same day that they would seek to refer them also to the Education and Employment References Committee, which was done as soon as the legislation committee report was received in December 2013. All of this produced months of needless delay, making clear that the Senate would refuse to pass these bills despite the government's mandate. The bills were also considered by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. With the change in the composition of the Senate, the government worked to seek to secure the support of new senators, but, as I have said, the Senate rejected those bills on 17 August last year.

The report of the trade union royal commission, they Heydon inquiry, was released in December last year. It identified overwhelming evidence that the systemic corruption and unlawful conduct of the CFMEU and some others in the building and construction sector required a specialist regulator in the sector, with strong powers and penalties. Many, many court cases provide further evidence of the need. So the bills to re-establish the ABCC were again passed by the House of Representatives in the first sitting week of this year and were introduced in the Senate on the same day—4 February. They had already been referred to yet another legislation committee inquiry into the same bills as those which had been previously referred to the same committee, with a late reporting date which was a delaying tactic to thwart the passage of the legislation.

Let me make two key points about the history of the bills. Firstly, there was a very striking overlap of submissions and witnesses between the 2016 committee inquiry and the 2013 and 2014 inquiries. In the public hearings this year, no group gave evidence which had not given evidence in the public hearings in 2013 or 2014. The reason is simple: it was the third inquiry into an identical bill, and essentially the same parties appeared before the same committee to say the very same things. Secondly, the decision of the Senate on 4 February this year to refer the identical bills to a further inquiry reporting on Tuesday, 15 March was clearly designed to have the effect—given the Senate routine of business as set out in the standing orders and the sitting calendar in its then form—that it would have been impossible in practice for the Senate to debate and decide on the ABCC bills prior to the government's last opportunity to refer them to the people, as the Constitution provides, in a double dissolution.

The Constitution provides that if there is deadlock between the two Houses on bills, this can be resolved by referring the matter to the people at a double dissolution election. But, given the 15 March reporting date set by the Senate, the only way that the Senate could in reality have had the time to debate and decide on these bills was by bringing the Senate back earlier than had been previously scheduled. This is what has now been done, in accordance with section 5 of the Constitution. And so, with the prorogation and the recall of the parliament, the time has come for the Senate to procrastinate no longer, to delay no longer and to come to a conclusion on these bills. It is for the Senate now to get on with the job of considering the bills without further unreasonable delay or excuses for avoiding deliberation.

The building and construction industry employs over a million Australians and represents around eight per cent of GDP. It is, therefore, one of the largest sectors of the economy and one of the largest sources of employment in this country. Ensuring an efficient and law-abiding building and construction sector is crucial for promoting jobs and growth, and is an important part of managing the transition of the economy from the mining boom to a more diversified economy—the central challenge of our economic policy today. These bills are about improving productivity. They will create jobs. They are about creating opportunities, protecting the tens of thousands of small businesses who employ so many people, and reducing the number of days work needlessly lost.

Upholding the rule of law will enable building projects to be delivered on time and on budget, with cost savings for consumers and for taxpayers—taxpayers who rightly expect value for money in building schools, hospitals, roads, rail, airports and more. This is crucial at a time when the government is spending tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure construction around Australia—building our future.

Upholding the rule of law in the building and construction sector is about enabling the million or so Australians who work in that sector to go to work free of intimidation and thuggery—conduct that was exposed by the Cole royal commission, was exposed again by the Heydon royal commission and has been exposed time and time and time again by Federal Court proceedings.

Let me turn then to the registered organisations bill, the core purpose of which is to ensure that unions and employer organisations have similar rules of transparency and accountability as those which apply to corporations. Why? Because there is no difference between a dodgy company director ripping off shareholders and a dodgy union boss ripping off members—as we have seen in so many cases.

As the Governor-General reminded us, Dame Quentin Bryce said in opening the new parliament in November 2013:

The law will be changed so that registered organisations and their officials are held to the same rules and standards as companies and their directors.

The bills to achieve this have been three times rejected by this Senate—once for the initial bill, and then twice for a near-identical bill—with three committee inquiries along the way. And so the government is now making its fourth attempt to have this Senate create a registered organisations commission to ensure a fair deal for union members and members of other registered organisations.

But members opposite oppose this because they want to protect their friends and paymasters in the trade union movement, just as, to take one notorious example, they protected Craig Thomson, who had ripped off union members in the most appalling ways and who, as we saw two weeks ago, continues to avoid his just punishment. Members opposite time and again protect union bosses and stand in the way of dealing with illegality rather than doing what is in the interests of the workforce and the community as a whole.

Lastly, let me turn to the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. There could perhaps be no better example of those opposite putting the interests of union bosses ahead of the interests of Australian workers—ahead of the interests of the community as a whole—than the creation by Mr Shorten of the so-called Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal to use the pretext of road safety to destroy the livelihoods of ordinary Australian mums and dads who are owner-drivers so as to favour the Transport Workers Union.

We have seen the dead hand of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments reach out to damage ordinary Australian owner-drivers and to damage the economy through the payments order made by the so-called Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. The payments order is right now forcing thousands of these mum and dad small business owners to the wall—these mums and dads who have staked their economic livelihood on buying a truck. Labor's tribunal is punishing these hardworking, decent Australian family businesses simply because they have chosen to operate a small business and not become a member of the Transport Workers Union.

So the government will be moving in this session of the parliament to abolish the RSRT, and we urge senators to support our attempts to do so. If the bill to abolish the RSRT comes to the Senate from the House of Representatives while the Senate is debating the ABCC bills, the government is prepared, subject to the will of the chamber, to adjourn the ABCC debate to allow the RSRT abolition bill to be dealt with straightaway, on the understanding that the chamber would then resume and finish dealing with the ABCC bills.

If the bill to abolish the RSRT does not pass, we will also at least seek to delay the RSRT payments order coming into effect, and after the election we will again try to abolish the RSRT. The RSRT payments order—an order of a Shorten-created tribunal threatening tens of thousands of owner-drivers, their families and the trucking industry more broadly—is yet another reminder of how Labor is nothing more than the agent of a minority interest, union bosses, against the interests of the community and the workforce as a whole.

In considering the bills we are here to consider, the Senate must decide whether it will respect the government's mandate; support or block measures that are a key part of the government's economic plan for jobs and growth; uphold law and order, where many judges and royal commissioners have shown that there is a culture of lawlessness; and be a house of review rather than a house of obstruction.

That is the challenge which His Excellency the Governor-General's speech has squarely placed before the Senate. And that is the challenge which we, and in particular those opposite, must face in coming days.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

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

I rise to speak today in great sadness at having to witness, yet again, the conservatives crawl into the demolition of our constitutional framework. What we had today is the ghost of 1975 revisited upon us, the long-dead arm of Sir John Kerr, crawling out of his grave to participate in a travesty of democracy in this country. What we saw is a blight on our democracy today.

We have seen a democratically elected Senate's decision overturned by the Queen's representative. That is what is at the heart of why are here today. There is no pretence this is a normal process that has gone on. You just had to look around the chamber today. Where were the High Court justices? Where were the heads of our military? Where were the hats of our diplomatic community? All were told, 'Don't come today'—because it is a political stunt. It is not a real opening of the parliament. In fact, they were not just told 'Don't come'; but 'Please, don't come. We don't want to pretend to the Australian public that this is a real proroguing of the parliament for the purposes that it has been used for traditionally.'

This is an absolute affront. We have seen today a Governor-General overturn the will of this chamber, a democratically elected chamber. That is what we have seen. We have seen a tawdry political stunt, and the Governor-General has demeaned his office—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, I remind you of the provisions of the standing orders, particularly relating to the Governor-General and the monarch. You are getting very close to reflecting adversely on His Excellency. I ask you to consider carefully your comments.

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

Thank you, I appreciate the point you made, Mr President. I appreciate the point you made, because a strong Governor-General would never have agreed to this.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, you have deliberately adversely reflected upon the Governor-General. I ask you not to do that again. You were warned about doing that.

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

I accept your admonishment, Mr President. If the Queen had been asked to interfere in the British parliament in this way, there is no way on this earth this would have happened. If the British Queen had been asked to manipulate, for political advantage of the government of the day—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Conroy!

Government senators interjecting—

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

I am talking about the government.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I raise a point of order. Standing order 193(2) provides:

A senator shall not refer to the Queen, the Governor-General or the Governor of a state disrespectfully in debate, or for the purpose of influencing the Senate in its deliberations.

There are two limbs to that standing order, Mr President, and the senator has violated both. He has referred disrespectfully to His Excellency the Governor-General not once but on several occasions and he has also invoked the Queen and the Governor-General for the purpose of influencing the Senate in its deliberations. This is a serious matter, and the Senator ought to be called firmly to order.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis.

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

Mr President, on the point of order, I have made no adverse reflection on the Queen at all. In fact, I have done the exact opposite. I have not in any way—I accept your point on the Governor-General; I did not mention the Governor-General, but I made absolutely no reflection on the Queen at all. I ask you, if you feel that I have, to pull me up. But I have made no reflection on the Queen.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Conroy. The mere fact that you referred to Her Majesty in the debate—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Order! And, as the standing order does clearly state, it was in a way to potentially influence the debate. You have referred to Her Majesty; you have linked Her Majesty to remarks made by the Governor-General and you have referred to the Governor-General as having possibly a different view to that of Her Majesty. You cannot say those things, and I am stressing that you cannot continue along those lines in relation to talking about Her Majesty and the Governor-General in any way that is going to reflect differences or in any way that is going to reflect adversely on either of those positions. So, Senator Conroy, you have the call. Be very careful about how you continue in relation to the monarch and the Governor-General.

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

As I said, never has the need for a republic been more evident than today. The ghost of Sir John Kerr has crawled and reached out from the grave to interfere in a democratically elected Senate decision. That is just the situation.

I understand why the government are so embarrassed about today. I understand why they told the High Court judges not to come and sit in the boxes. They told the chiefs of Army and Navy and Air Force, 'Don't come today.' They asked the diplomatic corps, 'Don't dress up as you normally do and come to the opening.' I understand why the government have done that. I understand why they are so defensive. I understand they do not want the Australian public to know what the costs of these two sittings are. I understand why they are so sensitive. But, Mr President, despite an enormous expense to the taxpayer, not to mention lost productivity and opportunity costs, this is nothing more than a political stunt by the government, who have dragged the office of the Governor-General into the government's tawdry political manoeuvrings.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, again you have adversely reflected upon the Governor-General—

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

I am reflecting on the government!

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Conroy, you cannot reflect upon the Governor-General by indicating that he has been manipulated by the government. That is definitely adverse. I am warning you, Senator Conroy. I am firmly warning you that you cannot continue down this path.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I raise a point of order. I just want to clarify your ruling, if I may, Mr President. I understood Senator Conroy to have been critical of the government. What you are ruling, if I can be clear about it—because I think it is useful for us to be clear about it—is that a reference to dragging the office into a political debate, you are saying, is manipulation. I would ask you to reflect upon whether that is an accurate interpretation of those words. I think if manipulation had been held, I can understand the ruling the President would make.

Senator Conroy interjecting —

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Conroy. Thank you, Senator Wong. I am happy to hear what you say. If we cannot uphold this fundamental basis in this chamber in relation to the Governor-General and, indeed, Her Majesty the Queen, then we are failing. I will stringently uphold this standing order. This is the last bastion of standing orders that we should always defend. I will uphold that. I have warned Senator Conroy, and Senator Conroy now has the call.

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

Since 1961, the parliament has only been prorogued four times, under extraordinary circumstances, and never to set the scene for an election and never to have a manipulation of politics in this way. Never in modern history has a government prorogued the parliament to obtain a political advantage. That is what this government has done. They have prorogued the parliament to obtain a political advantage. In fact, the government have boasted about how they have used the proroguing of parliament to give themselves a political advantage. Even the newspapers are full of it. You cannot have missed those; I am sure that you have not. They have boasted about their clever political manipulation of the parliament by proroguing it. That is without question. If they are called out on it, Mr President, it is fair debate. I accept all of what you have said so far, Mr President, and I appreciate what you have said.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Another smartie lawyers trick!

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

Yes, exactly. As a result of the proroguing of this parliament, the Prime Minister has cancelled all government business, meaning that Australians will have to wait longer for prospective child care changes, just to use one example. It means that the Prime Minister has used his position in advising the Governor-General in a way that I would have thought, after 1975, would never happen again.

As we know, the Prime Minister and the government have shown complete political contempt for a democratically elected chamber of this parliament—and for what? So that it can call a double dissolution election just to clear out the crossbenchers; a crossbench that this government is largely incompetent in negotiating with. It is a group of senators that the Prime Minister has labelled 'feral' because they will not be his lap-dogs, because the government want to hide what they are doing from scrutiny. This is a government that has brought down an iron curtain of scrutiny to ensure that Senate committees are treated with contempt; that government senators, where they can get away with it, filibuster their way through scrutiny on committees; and that public servants are bullied and intimidated behind the scenes to not give honest answers—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Publicly!

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

Publicly, as well—and to not give truthful answers to the chamber. This is a government that does not deserve to be re-elected; it does not deserve the trust of the Australian people. Labor rejects the premise on which the Prime Minister has prorogued this parliament. We wholeheartedly reject the Australian Building and Construction Commission bills, along with the registered organisations bill. If the Prime Minister—as he now cries crocodile tears for it—was committed to ensuring these two bills passed the parliament, he would have brought them on for debate in the last sitting period. But we know what the Prime Minister's priority was: he wanted to introduce, with his new best friends the Greens, a rort of Senate voting systems. He wanted to introduce a rort. You will all want to cheer me now; I cannot let this opportunity pass. We are here today for one reason and one reason only, because the Greens voted with the government to give the opportunity for this government to hold a double dissolution.

They mugged you. They took you to the cleaners in the negotiations. They promised you they would not bring the bill on in those two weeks, but they did not mention they were planning on proroguing the parliament, to use a political manipulation to bring it on anyway. They would only do that because they think will benefit from the new Senate voting system reform. You have handed them that on a platter, just like we have seen Senator Xenophon fold like a deck of cards on the safe rates bill. You have put this country in the hands of Senator Xenophon and the government after this election. We have seen in the last couple of weeks what a backbone he has when it comes to standing up to the government. It is all on your heads.

This bill is not urgent enough to go through the political manipulation of proroguing of the parliament. It is all about creating a double-dissolution trigger. It has nothing to do with the need to prorogue. This government has so mismanaged itself, it has so mismanaged this chamber and it has been fighting itself behind the scenes so much that it could not get its act together to bring on the bill for debate. We had till September. The normal election is not till September. These bills could have been dealt with many times over, but this government with the help of the Greens in creating a new rorted Senate voting system has seen a political advantage in forcing a double dissolution on this bill.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bring it on!

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

Exactly, Senator Wong. 'Bring it on!', we say. The Labor Party is ready to seek a mandate, to seek the support of the Australian public for our agenda, to reject the negative agenda. If the Prime Minister, as I said, was so committed to have these bills pass he had every opportunity.

We have made our position clear. We will not be supporting the ABCC. Those opposite have spent many months claiming that the ABCC will deal with criminal conduct on building sites. There is only one problem. It is a civil regulator and it is not legally allowed to do that. Their own bill does not allow them to deal legally with criminal matters on building sites. It does not do it, but they will say one thing and do another. The absolute hallmark of this government is to say one thing and do another.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You ignore the facts!

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

There are no facts in this political world we live in; there are only assertions. There is no safety link between pay rates and safety. There is no connection at all. I have seen a press conference with the ATA this morning—I watched it on 7.30 earlier in the week. Those opposite are just telling lies.

Senator Wong interjecting—

This government is too afraid to engage in factual debates. It is too afraid to admit that Senator Cormann has presided over the highest taxing and highest spending government, almost, in the history of this country. It is too afraid. You see them go on television and say, 'No, that's not true; we're lower taxing than Labor.' It is like: 'How can you possibly say that? Here's a graph. Here's a statistic. Here's a fact.' They have actually spent more. As I have said repeatedly to Senator Cormann in the chamber, 'You will never preside over a surplus while you are the finance minister, Senator Cormann.' You will never do it. You have actually outspent Senator Wong, the person you criticised as the worst finance minister. That was absolutely untrue then, but you on your own test have failed miserably.

Just like the claim that there is no link between pay rates and deaths on roads, there is a claim that the ABCC does not improve productivity. Let's get to the nub of the facts and some truth—according to the ABS, the ABCC did not improve productivity as is claimed. For more than seven years, productivity increased before the introduction of the ABCC. Productivity has been higher every year since the abolition of the ABCC in 2012. I have seen the government say black is white on this issue, and I have seen it quote studies discredited by justices. It is not just a political argument—but there is no factual basis for these claims. Please ignore this report! But the government clings to it and uses it as its justification. This is a government that has no agenda for this country; it has no plan for this country; it does not have a clue what it is doing with the budget. One minute it is going to increase taxes for ordinary Australians by making them pay more on the GST; the next minute it wants to give companies tax cuts. Seriously, Mr Turnbull gave the banks a lecture the other day about their behaviour. Do you know what the consequences of his lecture will be if the people of Australia re-elect Mr Turnbull's government? He will give four banks a $9 billion tax cut. That is tough love! My goodness, imagine if he liked them. He says, 'You've got to live within your means.' I would love to live within Malcolm Turnbull's means.

The government then claims the ABCC cut industrial disputes, except that it did not. Apart from an abnormal quarter in September 2012, working days lost per thousand workers to industrial action under the FWBI are lower than they were from the start of the series for the ABCC. So productivity did not improve and industrial disputes did not fall, but do not let facts get in the way of this government. It has no facts to support its case. Cutting safe rates will not lead to more deaths on roads—yes, it will. Even the government's own biased study proved the case for why we should keep the Safe Rates tribunal.

The ABCC does not deal with corruption; it does not lower industrial disputes; it does not lead to more productivity. This is a government that will stoop to make any claim to advance its political interests. We believe the ABCC's powers are extreme, undemocratic and compromise civil liberties. Workers in the building and construction industry deserve better than this.

Similarly, Labor rejects the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill, which will place higher penalties and a more onerous regime on officers of employer bodies and unions than those imposed on company directors. It is quite extraordinary that the government will attack working people and protect the big end of town at every chance it gets.

If the government gets re-elected do not believe any promise about the GST. The GST is in the DNA of every single Liberal and National sitting on that side of the chamber—it is in their DNA. They can make any promise. They promised last time, 'We won't go back and raise the rates. We won't expand it onto food.' Twenty years later, they are back for more, and it will not end there. They want to use a tax on food to give the four big banks are $9 billion tax cut. That is what they are about. I have a very simple question for the government: why don't you just make corporations in this country actually pay the tax that they should? Why don't you just make them? Very simple choices. This government will tell you black is white. It will mislead you at every stage. In this sitting, as I said, I rise in sadness. This sitting is a farce. The government have manipulated their way to defy a democratic decision of the Senate. (Time expired)

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the message delivered to the Senate by the Governor-General. It is extraordinary that we are meeting here today. It is an extraordinary measure to recall the parliament in the way that this government has done. As we have just heard, in the last 55 years parliament has been prorogued for a new session on only four occasions—two of those were to allow the Queen to open the parliament, another occasion was after the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt in 1967 and in 1969 we had an occasion where prorogation occurred immediately after an election to allow the parliament to sit for a day before Christmas.

So it is extraordinary that we are here today with the express intent to give the government a double dissolution trigger to take us to an election. It highlights that there is nothing conservative about this government. This is indeed a radical decision taken by an extreme government to invoke those extraordinary constitutional powers. This is a radical action taken by an extreme government. The fact that they are willing to go to these extraordinary measures of having the Governor-General recall the Senate and demanding that we pass the Australian building and construction commission bills, tells us that their No. 1 priority is not innovation, it is not bringing us into a new economy, it is not tackling climate change and the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and it is not the jobs that are going because we have inaction in managing that transition to a new economy. Their No. 1 priority is their own survival. That is why we are here today.

Nothing brings the coalition together more than a bit of good old-fashioned union bashing. This is a divided party. It is party where you have a Prime Minister who says he is not prepared to lead a government that is not as committed to climate change as he is, yet he is in Paris spruiking those shameful emissions targets that Tony Abbott took us to. It is a party that is divided on the issue of prejudice and discrimination in marriage. Again, the Prime Minister at least rhetorically said that he is a strong supporter of marriage equality. Yet, what does he do? He goes to his friends, those extremists, those radical right-wingers inside the coalition, and says, 'Yes, we'll conduct an inquiry into a safe schools program'—a program designed to keep young kids safe from bullying in schools. We have the spectre of a royal commission where some members of the coalition are saying, 'We support a royal commission, we support the Greens in their long-held view that this is a scandal and we will cross the floor in order to ensure it happens.' You see, this is done not in the national interest but in the Prime Minister's narrow self-interest. The only way that he can get a mandate from his own party and to bring them together—to bring those extreme elements into the tent—is to engage in a bit of good old-fashioned union bashing, because nothing brings the coalition together like a bit of old fashioned union bashing.

The Prime Minister has lacked the courage to take on those people within his party room. Rather than doing what good prime ministers do, which is to unite the nation, he is taking action to unite his party room but divide the nation—to his great, great shame. That is why he is losing support. That is exactly why he is losing support right now. At one stage he said that John Howard was the Prime Minister who broke the nation's heart. Well, he is the Prime Minister right now who is breaking the nation's heart because he has not got the courage to take on those right-wingers inside his own party room, to take a stand on global warming, to take a stand on ending discrimination in marriage and to take a stand on ending corruption wherever it exists, including within the finance and banking sector.

These bills, the ABCC bills, are not aimed at ending corruption; they are not essential to our economic future as the government suggests; they are just a good old-fashioned attack on the rights of ordinary working people; that is what they are. And there are existing powers, should the government want to use them, to take action against anybody it suspects is engaging in illegal activity. The Attorney-General was absolutely right when he said there is no difference between a dodgy boss and a dodgy union official. So my question to the Attorney-General is this: why support a royal commission into unions when you will not support one into the banking and finance sector? If both are to be treated equally, why not have a royal commission into both? Otherwise, your words are pure hypocrisy.

We have a government that is stuck in the past; it is fighting the battles of the last century, of bosses versus workers, where it is always going to take the side of the bosses. And people are tired of it. They are tired of the old merry-go-round; the paint is peeling and the music is jaded. They know this is not central to Australia's economic interests. They know that Australia's great challenge right now in the 21st century is to ensure that we start breaking the nexus with the old polluting industries of the past, that old thinking, those old political parties who do not understand that we are in a climate emergency that requires an urgent response and will allow us to take advantage of those economic opportunities that will create jobs and investment for generations to come. How we manage that challenge, not this side show, is the true test of any government.

There have been some big changes over recent decades. We have seen that productivity and prosperity for everyday Australians are no longer linked in the same way they once were. Productivity is increasing off the charts in some areas, yet wage growth remains flat. We saw the rivers of gold flow during the mining and property booms. What did they do? They helped the rich to get richer. We saw big income tax cuts under the Howard government which were biased towards those people with great wealth. As inequality increases, that provides a huge drag on our economy. This is not only a moral issue, a question of justice; it is also an economic issue. If you are worried about economic productivity, let's not engage in a witch-hunt against the union movement; let's listen to the IMF, who tell us that, as inequality increases, productivity decreases. It is a drag on our economy Yet we are experiencing scandals from the major banks within the finance sector. We are seeing tax avoidance on an enormous scale. This takes money out of schools and hospitals. People are suffering from traffic congestion in our capital cities because we have governments that refuse to invest in public transport. Just recently we saw the Prime Minister who promised he would be 'the Prime Minister for Sustainable Cities'—the Prime Minister who likes taking selfies while taking the bus or train—plough more money into those polluting road projects in Victoria and Western Australia.

Of course, we know all too well from the dodgy dealings in political donations that old vested interests are still dictating the terms of public policy when it comes to tax policy, investment policy, industrial relations policy and climate policy. Our political system is broken until the toxic influence of donations is removed. Big money politics is a cancer on our democracy. That is why we will be reintroducing our legislation to install a national anti-corruption watchdog. And we are pleased that Senator Lazarus and so many of the crossbenchers also support that call—as do Australians right around the country.

Yet while we are having this phoney debate, right through the property boom and the mining boom, we are seeing global temperatures increase. We have seen the hottest day on record, the hottest month on record and the hottest year on record—and the records keep getting broken, day in day out. We have seen those fires, some of them unprecedented, year on year. We have seen a major coral bleaching event threatening the wonderful asset that is the Great Barrier Reef, threatening the incredible biodiversity that lives in it—a world like no other, that we are committing to death—and threatening the more than 60,000 jobs that depend on its survival. So yes, we need reform.

We should be back here urgently—not to debate an attack on the rights of working people but to talk about how we unlock the potential of the new economy. We should be talking about how we redirect investment towards areas that we know are productive—away from the old polluting industries that will not be the pathway to Australia's future prosperity. The problem is that we have two old parties that are stuck in the past. Change is being held back by vested interests maintaining the status quo for their own narrow gains. Ordinary Australians are being treated out of a more sustainable and fairer Australia—one where the planet is warming. And all this government can do is go to the old handbook: 'Let's attack unions, let's engage in a battle that belongs in the last century, not this one.' No, we need some courage and vision in politics, and at this election the Greens stand prepared to show the Australian people that we can be better than this.

Debate adjourned.