Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Cash) to questions without notice asked by Senators Cameron and Watt today relating to the minister’s attendance before supplementary Budget estimates hearings of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee.1 Motions to take note of answers

This is a minister with no credibility, this is a minister who has misled the parliament on at least five occasions, this is a minister who refuses to accept any accountability and this is a minister who uses every opportunity in this place to slander decent working people while she presents herself in this place by hiding, by not answering any questions and by not being accountable to the Senate. This minister is an absolute disgrace. This minister sacrificed her own minder, one of her own senior staff, to save her own skin. That's what this minister did. She has got no credibility and no capacity to stand up here and argue any point on industrial relations portfolios, because she is an absolute fraud. She will be found out. She can run all she likes, as she is running out of the chamber now—she can run out of the chamber, but she will be held accountable. She will be held accountable by the Labor Party and she will be held accountable by the Senate because this minister has basically misled this place on at least five occasions.

The minister gets up today, when workers have been locked out by their employer for month after month in Queensland, and simply regurgitates a rumour based on no evidence, saying that workers in a small town claimed that they would rape the children of any worker who didn't support strike action. That's the level that this minister has got to. She has no credibility and absolutely no sense of decency. If she had any sense of decency whatsoever, she would be providing her resignation to the Senate now. When we see good people leaving the Senate and we see Senator Cash still here, it is no wonder the public is sickened by this rabble opposite, led by a weak Prime Minister. She comes in here day after day making up allegations against trade union leaders and against workers defending their jobs and defending their right to put food on the table for their family after being locked out for month after month.

This minister has got no right to be here after misleading the Senate the way she has. She has not gone anywhere near ministerial accountability. She has not gone anywhere near being accountable to the Senate. She has simply mouthed here allegations that there are no proof of. What she wants to do every time she is asked a serious question is to try and denigrate Labor members, trade unionists and workers out there trying to defend their job. That is common for this mob over here. This lot don't care about workers' rights or decency in the workplace. They simply want workers to be subdued by the employer, come to work every day and accept what the employer says. That's the style of this mob over here.

For a minister to come here and refuse to answer any questions—this is a minister who can't keep her mouth shut when she is on her feet attacking trade unions. But when she is asked a question about her credibility, about her behaviour, she can't sit down quick enough. She has absolutely no credibility as a minister and absolutely no credibility as a member of the government. She will continue to mislead this Senate because she has got nowhere to go. She was offered, day after day, to come and make herself accountable, and she has refused to do so. She has got no courage, no commitment to the Senate, no credibility as a minister. She is a disgrace and she should resign. (Time expired)

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

Can I first apologise to all those listening and to those in the gallery for the ugly display to which they were subjected to for the past five minutes. It was a display coming from a man, a senator, who sought to defend the criminally convicted Luke Collier at Senate estimates with over six dozen questions. Guess who Luke Collier worked for? Oh! The CFMEU. When we tell the truth—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz, just resume your seat. Senator Cameron, a point of order?

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order. This is in relation to 193. The member should not have any imputations of improper motives or personal reflections against a member or a senator. That's exactly what this minister has done. He has got no evidence of this. I have on two occasions indicated why I was asking questions. This minister should be made to withdraw.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, that is a debating point. Senator Abetz.

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

Just for those listening in, I actually happened to be the minister at the table whilst Senator Cameron was asking question after question to try to assert the integrity of one Luke Collier who is a criminally convicted individual who worked for the CFMEU. There was a protection racket going for this individual. Now, talking about the minister, Minister Cash, it was accused during question time that the minister was 'in hiding'. That would be like saying Uluru is in hiding. It sticks out. The minister is here and ready, willing and able to answer any specific question that senators had. Indeed, the opposition were given the opportunity of six questions, and all they asked were, 'Why are you in hiding?' when she was clearly, transparently, not in hiding. She was there and present, willing and able to answer specific questions. But, of course, the Labor Party, knowing they had no more material, had nowhere else to go, and so they just threw the slur. That is the way that they do their business.

In relation to the protection of workers, which Senator Cameron sought to clothe himself with, let me remind the Australian people that he is a frontbencher in a party led by a former trade union leader, Mr Shorten, who has threatened the Australian people to run Australia like a trade union. Now, how do people like Mr Shorten and the trade union movement run a trade union? Well, ask Kathy Jackson; ask Craig Thomson; ask Bruce Wilson—ask Mr Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, in fact, because what he did was a dirty deal to cut the penalty rates of the Chiquita Mushrooms workers to ensure that his union got money at the expense of low-paid workers. The only people that have cut Australians' penalty rates have been Mr Shorten and the Australian Workers' Union. Indeed, the most recent decision of the Fair Work Commission in relation to penalty rates—and let's get the history here—was as a result of deliberate amendments forced through this place by the dying Labor government, when Mr Shorten was the minister, to ensure that penalty rates were specifically looked at. Who looked at those penalty rates, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle? None other than people hand-picked by Labor onto the Fair Work Commission, appointments that I opposed and had indicated to Mr Shorten that I thought were not appropriate. Nevertheless, all of the people on the Fair Work Commission were hand-picked by Labor. Under Labor's legislation and by Labor's own hand-picked individuals, this decision was made. Why? Because they got mugged by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming: the higher the penalty rate, the fewer people employed in certain sectors. Might I add: we're not talking about nurses, ambulance people or fire brigades; we are talking only about the hospitality sector. They were mugged by the fact that that costs jobs.

Here we have a social justice decision out of the Fair Work Commission designed to give more Australians the opportunity to work, and what does Labor do? They say, 'We will seek to legislate to ensure that more of our fellow Australians stay on the scrap heap of unemployment.' And they claim to be the social justice party. Who do they lead-off with in this debate? The chief defender of the thugs in the CFMEU that Senator Cameron seeks to champion day after day at Senate estimates and in this place. You could never accuse Senator Cash of hiding, and it also highlights that Bill Shorten is unfit for government. (Time expired)

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's no surprise that they'd send Senator Abetz in to talk about this issue, because he has really been the architect of the witch-hunt and pursuit of their political opponents that we've seen from those opposite now for more than four years. The reality of this situation is that it's actually the witch-hunt that they've had and the agenda that they've pursued that have unravelled with the overreach by Senator Cash and her office. I will come back to that in more detail, because I want to outlay some of the facts that we've seen that were outlaid by Senator Cameron—and I'm sure Senator Watt, behind me, will touch on them. They were two of the inquisitors that we saw in Senate estimates when Minister Cash failed to answer the questions, and failed to answer the questions in Senate question time as well. She may be here, but she certainly isn't answering the questions.

With Senator Cash, the reality is that she has no credibility, misled the Senate on five occasions, refuses to be accountable for ministerial standards, refuses to answer questions now in this chamber and is also refusing to attend another hearing of the estimates before parliament rises so that that can be further scrutinised. That's her record in this regard; that's the record of Senator Cash. It is unacceptable for the leader of government business in here to try to defend that. But there's a broader element to this, and that's the motivation of this government and the conduct of this minister.

Since coming to power more than four years ago, the government and the minister have spent millions of dollars pursuing Labor, pursuing a royal commission and targeting their political opponents with a whatever-it-takes attitude. The fact that they tipped off the media in regard to a raid on the AWU—I don't think that's the first time they've done it. This is really at the heart of what they have done. They use any opportunity, through this, to pursue their political opponents. They've done it, I'm sure, through the royal commission and, indeed, we've seen it in this chamber since I got elected last year. You'd get up and you'd see the front page of the paper: there would be a smear on a union or an individual that would be, no doubt, led by Senator Cash—they'd be there high-fiving in their office. Then the senator would come in here, take a question and smear again. That's what we've seen. This has been the tactic from those opposite. They've done it for four years. For four years they have pursued this, and it is now in tatters. The credibility of this attack is now in tatters. They pursued their political opponents through a royal commission. They did that, thinking it was going to impact on the last federal election campaign. They called a double dissolution on industrial relations issues, yet they never mentioned them again. We've seen over the last month that the credibility of Senator Cash, the lead attack dog on these issues, is in tatters. She didn't get a dixer on it this week—she's been focused on other things. That speaks volumes for how the government sees this and why it had to send in Senator Abetz to try to rebuild its attacks in this regard.

We know from the conduct of the staffer who tipped off the media is that there's no doubt that was encouraged within Senator Cash's office. They pursued a political strategy where they would tip off journos, to give them the heads-up, in trying to build a case against their political opponents, using every lever that they had to do it. I dare say they have, to quote a former Labor senator, a 'whatever it takes' attitude when it comes to pursuing their political opponents. That's what Senator Cash was responsible for. That's what her office was responsible for. What did they tell the Prime Minister? Did they fess up to him and say what they were up to when they met before question time? They let the staffer go, they threw him under a bus, but won't actually front up and give the answers that we are demanding and that the Australian public deserve to know in regard to this issue.

We'll continue to pursue Senator Cash and the others in regard to this, and we will continue to highlight the fact that the smear campaign against their political opponents that they've been pursuing now for four years is in tatters. In Senator Cash they've got a minister who has been at the forefront of this and who has no credibility. They've got a minister who is refusing to answer the questions that we are putting to her in regard to this, both in this chamber and through Senate estimates. And they've got a minister who should live up to the ministerial standards and make the decision to resign, because that is the only way the government can have credibility when it comes to workplace issues and governance in this country.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the only thing in tatters in this chamber at the moment is the credibility of the opposition, because what we've seen here is a continuing attack on an effective and highly credible minister of the Crown, one who is performing very ably in her role and who is revealing what the populace of Australia knows about the Australian Labor Party, the current opposition, and its leader: that the links to the union movement are corrosive and destructive.

We've seen the evidence presented by Minister Cash—credible, extensive evidence—to Senate estimates hearings revealing she was not aware of the AFP raids until they occurred and were reported in television coverage. Senator Cash made it very clear that she was not aware that her staff member had made the tip-off. She was informed, in fact, that there was no such tip-off. Senator Cash has been completely upfront and honest. She has appeared before Senate estimates hearings on this topic, she has presented herself in this place and we have seen extensive questioning from the opposition that has got absolutely nowhere. Why are the opposition continuing their attack on this highly effective and credible minister? Because they are running a protection racket for their leader, Bill Shorten. They're running a protection racket on donations to his own election campaign and on donations made to GetUp! when he was national secretary of the AWU. There are very important questions to be answered in this space and the answers have not been forthcoming from the Labor Party. They attack Minister Cash and they continue their attacks even when the results are proven to be so ineffective in this place.

We've seen so many examples of union members' money being wasted on unauthorised expenditure. Recently there was a union official given a 13-month sentence for spending union members' money on things like hen's parties, botox, kitchens and other personal expenses. And everyone in this place remembers Craig Thomson and what he was using the Health Services Union credit card for.

This use of union members' money should be of absolute concern to the Australian Labor Party—to the opposition in this place—but they don't seem to care. They just want to attack Minister Cash; they want to try to run their protection racket on Bill Shorten. What have we heard from the trade union royal commission? The trade union royal commission said:

The conduct that has emerged discloses systemic corruption and unlawful conduct, including corrupt payments, physical and verbal violence, threats, intimidation, abuse of right of entry permits, secondary boycotts, breaches of fiduciary duty and contempt of court.

That is the finding of a royal commission, and the reason why the opposition continues to attack Minister Cash is because it doesn't like the findings of the royal commission. It doesn't like the efforts of this government to crack down on union corruption—to pass laws banning secret payments between unions and big business.

In the past, millions of dollars of dodgy payments changed hands in exchange for unions selling down workers' pay and conditions. They didn't like the introduction of the ABCC: they didn't like the re-introduction of the ABCC, the industrial watchdog on the block of the building industry, making sure that we try to reduce the level of criminality and negative tactics in the building industry. We've seen massive hypocrisy on penalty rates, where we've seen low-paid workers sold down the river by their union bosses. It's a disgraceful fact that, as a union boss, Mr Shorten cut deals to lower penalty rates, including in the retail and hospitality industries by the same rate the Fair Work Commission is now applying for workers on the relevant awards.

They stripped penalty rates from low-paid cleaning workers at Clean Event, with no compensation. This is why the opposition continues to attack Minister Cash, one of the most effective and high-quality operators in this place.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the answers of Senator Cash during question time. It was very interesting: up until a couple of weeks ago, the last sitting week or so, every day during question time we became used to Senator Cash coming into this chamber—usually on the back of a report that, coincidentally, she'd managed to get into a News Corporation paper that very day—to launch an attack on unions and working people, often based on very flimsy evidence. But it has been very interesting this week that Senator Cash has not decided to do that. She came in today and gave some answer about a question in the portfolio that she's representing another minister in. She has stayed well away this week from her traditional attacks on unions.

Now, why would that be? The only reason is that she at least has the self-awareness to understand that from estimates onwards not one person in this country takes anything that she says about unions seriously. The fact that she has launched a partisan campaign, based on flimsy evidence and using every arm of government available to her, against unions and working people was exposed at estimates, once and for all. And from that day onwards, everything that she says about unions, working people and the Labor Party no-one will ever believe again.

Let's just quickly remember what happened during estimates. We were all heading into estimates expecting to be asking questions of Minister Cash about her disgraceful handling of the other arm of the government against unions, being the ABCC. We all remember her own hand-picked appointment, Nigel Hadgkiss, who had to resign from his position in disgrace. We barely even got to that in estimates. There we were, ready to ask some questions about that, but Senator Cash and her office managed to concoct something even bigger still—an even bigger distraction from the affairs of the ABCC—and that was in the form of the AFP raid on union offices and the now notorious tip-off to the media by her own office.

It's well-known now that Minister Cash was asked about this over and over again during estimates, and on at least five occasions she misled the Senate committee as to what she knew and what her office had done in this entire affair. She had opportunities time and time again through that estimates proceeding—during lunchbreaks, morning tea breaks and afternoon tea breaks—she had every possible form of technology known to humankind in front of her and she was on it all day asking all sorts of questions of her office, but she never took the opportunity to ask her office whether the evidence she was giving the Senate was accurate. Do you know why? She didn't want to know the answer. She knew there was something going on there that she didn't want to know the full facts about. We can take only at face value the minister's answers when she said she was not aware that her own office had tipped off the media about the impending police raid on union offices, but there are so many questions that remained unanswered by this minister. They were not answered properly in estimates in any of the sessions. She was unavailable for the follow-up session and is now not making herself available for another estimates session until parliament rises for the year. Even today she has continued to refuse to answer these very legitimate questions that people all around Australia want answers to. She has still not answered, either to the committee or to the Senate, whether other members of her office were aware of the fact that the media were tipped off.

I asked Minister Cash about this on numerous occasions at the first and second estimates committee hearings, and each time she said she was unable to answer. I made it very clear that I wanted to know from her, beyond the one staff member who has resigned in disgrace, which other members of her office were aware that the media had been tipped off about the impending police raid. She has still not answered that question. She didn't answer it in estimates twice and she wasn't able to answer it and wasn't prepared to answer it here in question time again today. Beyond her own office, we still don't have answers as to what role the Prime Minister's office had in this affair. She wouldn't tell us at estimates and she won't tell us here in question time whether members of her office had spoken to the Prime Minister's office about the fact that they were tipping off media. She doesn't want to talk about that, because there's something she's still keen to hide, and today she wasn't prepared to tell us why she hid the truth from the Prime Minister. On the day this story broke she attended a question time briefing with the Prime Minister and misrepresented what one of the shadow frontbenchers, Anthony Albanese, had said on radio. She has been asked repeatedly: why did she mislead the Prime Minister? She continues to say no. We are not going to give this matter up. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.