Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying in my remarks this morning, these workers are not covered by workers compensation laws, they're not covered by unfair dismissal laws, they're not covered by the minimum wage. These are the kinds of issues that demand action from us here, in this parliament, in the Senate, not this anti-workers bill that threatens the pay and conditions of even more workers. As my colleague Senator Sheldon has so powerfully and convincingly argued, governments and parliaments must start leading, with effective market design and regulation, rather than chasing ineffective versions of neither. But we don't see this government taking the action that is so clearly needed to support and to protect working people. We don't see legislation to tackle the other structural challenges of our time—challenges like stagnant wages, worker exploitation, or regulation and protection for the sharing economy—and we don't see action to combat the challenges presented by the disruption of artificial intelligence and automation in industries like retail, and in warehousing. These challenges are causing new and unprecedented threats to the security and safety of work.

Instead of supporting unions and workers, the government gives us this bill again—a rehashed bill that represents another politically motivated attack on workers' ability to organise and run their own unions, to determine who leads them and to determine how they can best provide representation, advocacy, support and advice. These attacks on workers are in the Liberals' DNA. Remember this bill came from the party who brought us Work Choices. Work Choices was an attack on employees' individual rights in the workplace and, as we all know, it was a policy that was comprehensively rejected by the Australian people in 2007. After the 2007 election, all we heard from the other side, from the Liberals, was that Work Choices is dead. They told us they'd listened. They told us they'd heard the message from working Australians, who rightly demanded their rights at work be protected. But here we are again, with a third-term Liberal government, and we get the ensuring integrity bill because, after all, going after Australian workers through Work Choices was ultimately unsuccessful. They failed in the end, so now they're going after the union movement itself.

Australia is a nation built on the values of fairness. That includes fair wages, and it includes a safety net for those who are unable to work. The Labor Party fought hard against the Howard government's heartless attempt to unravel these values, and we're fighting hard now because—make no mistake—the Liberals are ideologically bent on attacking workers' pay and conditions, which is just incredibly rich coming from a Prime Minister who continues to parrot that we are a nation where, if you have a go, you get a go. Well, apparently not, if you're a working Australian or you're a union official trying to represent them. Labor will not support a bill that makes it harder for workers to get a fair pay rise. We will not support a bill that could leave workers without the representatives who protect them from wage theft, from super theft and from dangerous workplaces. Workers should get to choose who represents them, not the Prime Minister.

The government is running the claim that this bill has been revised to more closely align these reforms with their corporate equivalents, but this bill remains far more extensive and extreme in the regulation of unions than anything in the corporate world. These laws will make it possible for government ministers and disgruntled employers to shut down unions and to deny working people their right to choose their own representatives. This bill is about silencing working people and making it harder for all working Australians to win pay rises and better conditions.

Fundamentally, this bill fails the fairness test. It would not apply to businesses. It would not apply to banks, despite the serious unethical conduct that was on full display for us all to see during the royal commission—the royal commission that they didn't want, mind you, that they fought against, that they voted against and that we pursued. This won't apply to politicians either. It also fails the commonsense test. If these laws applied equally to corporations, we would see banks, multinational pizza chains and the restaurants of celebrity chefs closed down for breaking workplace laws or we would see their top executives sacked, but this is not being proposed. What is proposed is an outrageous double standard for unions.

The only people who would benefit from these laws are the Morrison government and unethical employers. As stated before, the work to rein in unethical employers is ever increasing. We hear that the Fair Work Ombudsman will seek further funding as its work balloons, but instead the government seeks to give more power to the Registered Organisations Commission, a body thoroughly politicised and discredited over its role in the Australian Workers Union raid scandal. The Registered Organisations Commission should not be further empowered by this bill. It should not be given new ways of interfering in the affairs of Australian workers. We maintain that allegations of serious breaches by officers of registered organisations should be dealt with by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Treating companies and registered organisations the same, or at least similarly, should extend to using the same regulator.

But this isn't about common sense. It's not about legislative reform to improve workers' pay, conditions or rights at work. It's an attack on unions; it's an attack on workers; and it is an attack on fairness. And if there's one thing we can be certain of, it is that it is not the only attack coming. Already we have seen from government backbenchers hints that their next target may well be workers' superannuation. At a time when we should be working to address the super gap between men and women, when we should be finding ways to bring women's super up to the levels of their male counterparts, some coalition MPs and some coalition senators seem to think that the solution should be to slash super entitlements for everyone. We must be under no illusions about this government's agenda. They are not here for workers. They are not here for fairness at work. Inequality is on the rise globally, as we see the failure of trickle-down economics to bring the benefits so widely and hopefully promised. Instead, we've seen the bargaining power of ordinary Australians steadily reduced. And their share of national wealth has been steadily dropping, only to be claimed by the top one per cent.

In this climate we need our unions. Unions are a critical thread in the fabric of a fair society. They are needed to ensure workers get the fair pay and the fair go that they deserve. Unions shouldn't be singled out for draconian controls and penalties because they have shown and they have uncovered that some businesses have chosen to do the wrong thing. I reiterate: some businesses—because, of course, not all businesses do the wrong thing. Most people in the corporate world are good people with good intentions, who care about their fellow Australians. But we can be under no illusion that all businesses operate in this way. There are some businesses in Australia behaving badly—behaving appallingly, even.

Last week it was reported that an Australian bank had broken money-laundering laws 23 million times and allegedly contributed to the spread of child sexual exploitation material. And the response we got from the Prime Minister? 'It's a matter for the board.' Yet the same Prime Minister wants the power to expel union leaders and even shut down entire unions for minor paperwork breaches. As my colleague Senator Farrell brought to the Senate's attention during question time yesterday, when the government introduced the ensuring integrity bill, the minister claimed that it was to establish corporate equivalence with unions. But how can there be corporate equivalence if 23 million breaches of the law are 'a matter for the board' if you're a bank but three breaches of paperwork can get you deregistered if you're a union? Why is it that there is one rule for banking executives and another for working Australians when it comes to this government?

Further reports indicate that, in some cases, certain businesses are considering the possible costs of getting caught stealing wages or ignoring dangerous workplaces and they are choosing to behave illegally, because they have determined the benefits of doing so outweigh the potential costs. If there is industrial relations legislation and reform to be made by this parliament, it is legislation that addresses these issues. It is legislation that deals with the regulatory loopholes in the gig and sharing economy. It is legislation that focuses on improving conditions for workers, not taking their rights away.

Across Australia, unions are working to sustain Australians in safe, secure and meaningful jobs. From manufacturing to road transport and from retail to cafes and restaurants, unions are standing up for the rights of working Australians. In contrast, the legislation in front of us is the legislation of a government with no plan to support working Australians and their families—because this government has no plan for our country. It has no plan to deal with low wages and rising prices. It has no plan to deal with increasing underemployment and unemployment—a huge issue in my state. It has no plan to deal with the many working Australians in insecure work—hamstrung by stagnant wages. And it has no plan to deal with the unacceptable rates of poverty and inequality in Australia—again, a huge issue in my state of South Australia. The cost of essentials is skyrocketing, electricity prices are increasing and child care has become unaffordable under this government. Australians are worried about the economy, but the Prime Minister and the Liberals just pretend there is no problem, which is not surprising from a government that just makes policy decision after policy decision which make it harder for struggling Australians to make ends meet. But Australians deserve better. Working people deserve better.

This bill represents just another example of this Liberal government failing working Australians. It is an attack on unions and, therefore, on the workers who depend on them. It's absolutely mind-blowing that this government would rather protect dodgy employers than stand up for everyday working Australians. Are everyday working Australians not part of the Prime Minister's 'quiet Australians'? He claims to stand up for the issues that affect us all, but does that not include the issues affecting over 500,000 sales workers, 200,000 truck drivers, 279,000 registered nurses or 165,000 primary school teachers? These are the working Australians our unions represent. These are the people unions fight for. They are working Australians that need this government to protect their rights and working conditions and to always be working towards delivering them better pay and better conditions at work. But this legislation shows us plain as day that this government is absolutely out of touch with the needs of working people. Worse than that, it shows us that they are out of touch and they simply don't even care.

Labor does not accept the premise of the bill. We didn't accept it the first time around and we certainly don't accept it now, because we cannot possibly support a bill that will make it harder for people to get a fair pay rise and that leaves workers without the representatives that will protect them from wage theft and dangerous workplaces. We don't support this government pursuing its ideological opposition to unions and working people at the expense of genuine reform that would improve the lives of Australian workers and their families. This bill has no redeeming features whatsoever, and the Senate should be rejecting it in its entirety. It affects the day-to-day operation of every single union. It changes everything, and none of it for the better. This bill is not only undemocratic and draconian; it is simply unnecessary. It is ideological, it is flawed, it will achieve nothing for working Australians and it will undermine our workers, our unions and our democracy.

I urge my fellow senators: join Labor. Join our fight for working Australians. Fight back against them and their ideological obsession with taking rights away from Australian working people. They don't care about working Australians. They never have; they never will. This is the first step on a slippery slope back to Work Choices, back to coming after your super. We have to fight against it. We have to vote against it. I urge the entire Senate to join Labor, stand up for working Australians, stand up for the people that we represent out there, stand up for the people in my state of South Australia and oppose this legislation, because it's disgraceful.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. I strongly support the work of unions and recognise their value in ensuring fairer and safer workplaces across Australia. Unions have long played a vital role in our society and our economy and continue to provide an invaluable contribution to the Australian labour market. They are essential in negotiating fair wages for their members, ensuring safe workplaces and advocating in relation to public policy, including identifying public health concerns and calling for remedies—for example, procedures to deal safely with certain building products such as asbestos. The overwhelming majority of unions and union officials act constructively, in good faith and within the law. Regrettably, however, a small number of unions and union officials have a persistent track record of flouting the law and engaging in workplace thuggery. This small minority of unions and union officials take the view that obeying the law is optional and that any court imposed penalty is simply the cost of doing business.

A culture of never expressing regret or contrition, of never admitting wrongdoing or accepting fault, has meant that these union officials refused to change their behaviour and bring their organisations into line with the rule of law. Instead, they express public pride in breaking the law and encouraging others to break the law. If anyone has any doubt about this problem, they need to look at the many adverse judicial comments from the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court justices about the CFMEU and its officials.

Judicial officers are normally very reserved and restrained in their remarks, but they have not held back when it comes to the CFMEU's record of lawbreaking, intimidation, violence and recidivism. Justice Jessup of the Federal Court labelled the CFMEU as 'notorious' and 'an embarrassment to the trade union movement'. Justice Tracey of the Federal Court referred to the CFMEU's 'depressing litany of misbehaviour'. Justice Bennett of the Federal Circuit Court noted:

The CFMEU has … an extensive history of contraventions … The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the organisation either does not understand or does not care for the legal restrictions on industrial activity imposed by the legislature and the courts.

Justice Vasta of the Federal Circuit Court has described the CFMEU as 'the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history'. He similarly observed:

It seems that the CFMEU feel that they can usurp Parliament and that they can set the law in this country. There is no place for such an attitude in Australian society.

Justice Logan of the Federal Court also pointed to the necessary consequences of such recidivist behaviour. He said:

An industrial organisation, be it an employer organisation or an employee organisation, which persistently abuses the privilege by engaging in unlawful conduct cannot expect to remain registered.

It is an unfortunate state of affairs when the reckless action and cavalier attitude of the very few require legislative reform to address it, but this is why we are here today debating a bill to bring order and better governance to remedy these behaviours.

The government bill before the Senate has been the subject of a great deal of debate both inside and outside of the parliament and has been subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which reported on 25 October 2019. In my additional comments arising from that inquiry, I stated that Centre Alliance could not support the bill as it stood. In their zeal to crack down on the very small number of rogue unions and union officials, the government proposed using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The government's bill was potentially quite disproportionate in its impact and lacked adequate safeguards to ensure that the overwhelming majority of law-abiding and responsible unions and unionists were not caught up by provisions to correct the recidivist, law-breaking minority.

Listening to the various witnesses who made submissions and presented evidence during the Senate inquiry highlighted the main areas of concern and contention. Many unionists from a wide range of unions have contacted my office to express strong fears about the potential impact of the government's original bill on their legitimate activities and the ability of unions to lawfully represent their members. Centre Alliance has listened to and understands those concerns about the government's original proposals. As I already said, we could not have supported the bill as it was originally introduced.

Very significant amendments were required to ensure that legitimate and lawful union activity is protected and the role of unions to lawfully negotiate fair wages, ensure safe workplaces and advocate for their members' interests are not improperly impeded. Centre Alliance has engaged with the government on these issues to make the bill proportionate to the problem it seeks to address and to ensure that there are appropriate and effective safeguards for legitimate and lawful union activity. As a consequence, the bill has been substantially reworked. In effect, we now have what amounts to a new and quite different piece of legislation.

The amended bill is now proportionate, balanced and appropriate to its public policy objective, and this debate should reflect the very substantial changes that have been made. Whilst this bill will have the same basic purpose of curbing unlawful behaviour, it has been substantially tempered. As amended, the bill will not prevent or impede the right of unions to represent their members effectively, to campaign for wage increases and to ensure workplaces abide with health and safety requirements. Unions and their members that operate lawfully—and that is the overwhelming majority of unions and unionists—will continue to exercise their rights and pursue their legitimate objectives. The amended bill is not a union-bashing bill—unless, of course, you are talking about a handful of unions and union officials that break the law as a matter of routine and engage in thuggish business practice. To continue to say that this is what this bill does is misleading and fearmongering, and this approach isn't helpful.

I also note in the debate that there has been a number of furphies. I've listened to some members of the chamber saying, 'What about the banks?' Of course, their conduct, particularly Westpac's, is abhorrent. But I note that in the last 24 hours we've seen three resignations. I contrast that with what happens or, rather, doesn't happen to some of these union members that persistently break the law. I also note that Westpac is now before the courts. Perhaps they won't be broken up, but I point out to the chamber that, in the last sitting week, Centre Alliance moved amendments to allow for court ordered divestiture of large corporations that engaged in egregious conduct, and they were not supported by Labor.

I also note that, if you go onto the Treasury website, there is a plan, including time frames, for the introduction of legislation that will deal with the misconduct of banks identified in the banking royal commission, so it's not true to say that this parliament is focusing on unions. We've dealt with the retail energy sector, we're dealing with the unions this week, and in the future we will deal with other elements addressing misconduct. I hope we're dealing also with political misconduct by way of an ICAC bill.

My office has received many calls from well-intentioned yet poorly informed union members urging me to vote no for the bill as it originally stood and to say no to the bill regardless of any amendments. Many have been misled about what the amended bill—this bill that's now before the Senate—will mean for them and their unions. Much scaremongering is continuing, and that approach isn't helpful. I point out that I engaged with unions all the way through my negotiations with the government, up until unions decided to start advertising against us, and I point out that they advertised in states where there were no crossbench senators, so I think they must have really just been advertising to their own members that they were standing up for them—but, of course, paying for it with union members' funds. Much of the scaremongering included full-page newspaper ads, robocalls and billboards. It came from rogue unions that fear their business model of bullying, intimidation and flouting of the law will be brought to an end. They should be held accountable, and this amended bill will go some way to ensure this, whilst ensuring that legitimate, well-behaved, law-abiding union activity is safeguarded.

As I've said, a great deal of work has gone into reworking the bill to make it fairer and to modify points of contention identified during the inquiry process. Together, the government and Centre Alliance have extensively modified the bill, and that's what we see here today. The improvements have been carefully thought out and constructed to avoid harsh or disproportionate impacts upon law-abiding unions and yet be strict enough to bring those law-breaking unions back into line. The bill has been modified to ensure that a designated finding will not capture trivial and technical breaches of the law and will not in itself lead to disqualification of a registered organisation or member.

The new regime establishes a penalty point scheme which is a fair and objective method to determine whether an application for disqualification should be made. I have described this as being something like a drivers licence system. The bill also includes provisions to ensure that only systematic conduct is targeted. If a union official makes a mistake of type A and then type B some time later and then type C some time later—making mistakes—that should not invoke an application to a court. If an offence of type A occurs and then recurs systematically, clearly not learning lessons along the way, then an application could be raised. This approach ensures that more serious contraventions are addressed, and, as I said, the ROC commissioner is now required to prioritise serious concerns or those cases that demonstrate a systematic attitude before bringing an application to the court. So, in that way, the bill strikes a fair balance. On one hand, it preserves the right to agitate for improvements in wages, employee conditions and public safety, while, on the other hand, it ensures organisations are unable to hold employers hostage. The ability to undertake collective action is a long-entrenched right within the Australian employment landscape. That right is preserved and safeguarded.

In the course of the committee's review of the bill, it became evident that there was a lot of concern surrounding the standing of a person with sufficient interest, or of the minister, to apply for the disqualification of a person and the deregistration of an organisation. The amendments to this bill remove the standing of the minister and a person with significant interest. The removal of the ability for a minister to make application for the deregistration or disqualification will ensure impartiality and that any application made is not politically or commercially motivated. A person with sufficient interest may make a referral to the commissioner. However, where they do, the commissioner retains full discretion on whether to act on the referral.

The full discretion of the court has also been reinstated, and this is a very important safeguard. While the courts will have full discretion when considering an application for disqualification, deregistration or alternative orders, they must consider whether any such order is just in the circumstances after considering the gravity of the grounds of the application. So, if a ROC commissioner brings an application that is not, indeed, grave, the court will consider that and will simply reject the application, dismiss the application.

The circumstances the court may have regard to may include whether any deregistration may result in the members becoming unrepresented. Where the court is of the opinion that the circumstances don't support an order for deregistration, they may instead impose an alternative order, such as excluding certain members or suspending the rights and privileges of individuals, while preserving the organisation intact.

Further, the court will have the discretion to consider any other matter it considers relevant. Another consideration for the court when deciding whether unprotected industrial action may result in the disqualification of a person or the deregistration of an organisation is whether the industrial campaign has a public health focus. We need our unions to maintain their civic focus, like they have done with the dangers of asbestos and when patient ratio numbers in hospitals are too high. These considerations are very relevant factors for the court to consider.

Another change in the bill is amalgamations of unions being subject to a public interest test. It's Centre Alliance's view that this would unduly burden and hinder the ability of law-abiding organisations to amalgamate after a democratic process has approved the joining of two organisations. An approved method is now in the bill that basically says that the public interest test will only be required or only apply to amalgamations when an organisation has over 20 court-determined compliance breaches that have occurred over the last 10 years. That's a very, very high bar. Most unions will never have to be subjected to a public interest test if they choose to merge. So, if you've got a clean record, there is no impediment.

In effect, with all of these changes, we have what amounts to a new and quite different law, with the reframing of the bill to ensure that the court, as the final arbiter, has sufficient discretion and safeguards to take into consideration a range of factors in coming to a fair, reasonable and just decision. The government's bill prior to amendment was disproportionate and lacked adequate safeguards. The amended bill is now proportionate, balanced and appropriate to its public policy objective. The amended bill will now not prevent or impede the right of unions to represent members, to fight for wage increases and to ensure workplaces comply with health and safety requirements.

The bill, as now amended, clearly targets unacceptable behaviour, not a particular union. If registered organisations are compliant with their legal obligations—just as many other Australian companies, other organisations and individuals are required to comply with the law, including the provisions of various regulatory regimes—they will have nothing to be concerned about. If a very small number of unions and union officials continue to repeatedly break the law and the decisions of independent courts, they will fall foul of the provisions in this bill. However, again, the overwhelming majority of unions and their members, who operate lawfully, will continue to exercise their rights and pursue their legitimate objectives. By constraining the behaviour of what is a small recidivist minority, this legislation will unquestionably strengthen the place of unions as legitimate and essential contributors to our society and economy.

Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. This bill is fundamentally an ideological attack on the whole of the trade union movement. It reeks of spite and vengeance. It is the work of a government that has no interest in upholding good public policy and one that has always nursed a visceral hatred of trade unions; a government that is prepared to sit on its hands while unscrupulous employers exploit workers who are already poorly paid by failing to pay them their legal dues; a government that talks about being committed to undoing red tape yet promotes legislation like this that will unleash unholy opportunities for hostile interests to tie up in knots trade unions they don't like and whose resources are already stretched defending the rights of their members.

It's a travesty that the government has called this the ensuring integrity bill, because this legislation is wholly lacking in integrity. But what else can you expect from a born-to-rule mob full of arrogance and confidence that they have the silent Australians in their pocket? The offensive overreach of this legislation has already been revealed in the plethora of submissions to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. The bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also identified serious shortcomings:

In relation to this bill, the committee notes that while there have been a number of changes to the bill including relating to matters the committee previously commented on, these do not fully address the committee's initial concerns.

And what were the committee's initial concerns? It found that the bill was incompatible with the right to freedom of association. Freedom of association sits at the very heart of our democracy. That's why this right is protected by the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This important bipartisan committee, of which I am a member, was set up to hold governments accountable to their human rights obligations. In the absence of a domestic human rights law like a constitutionally enshrined bill of rights, it is one of the few tools we have to ensure Australia's compliance with core human rights treaties to which we are a party. But this government is prepared to trample human rights and ignore the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Make no mistake: this bill is not driven by any notion of integrity. It is a purely ideological attack driven by contempt for working people and for their representatives. The union movement has done more to maintain the integrity of our civil society than those opposite will ever know. Their ideological hatred of the unions blinds them to the struggles ordinary people have waged to obtain many of the rights, opportunities and privileges we now take for granted.

First Nations know this struggle very well, and indeed the union movement has been an important ally in the fights that First Nations have struggled through to get civil and land rights recognised. In the biggest struggles of social and economic justice, when oppressive governments and powerful vested interests have sought to oppress First Nations, it has been the union movement that has stood in solidarity and demanded integrity when no-one else would stand with us. It was the union movement that helped the Gurindji people in their years in the strike camp, sustained them in their struggle and gave Vincent Lingiari a voice in the big cities. The truck they used to ferry supplies from Darwin to the strikers at Daguragu is now in the National Museum. I'd encourage those opposite to go and have a look at it and ask themselves whether those unionists lacked integrity. It was the Council of Trade Unions, led by the then president Bob Hawke who stood side by side with First Nations peoples when we took on the Western Australian Liberal government of Sir Charles Court and an international mining company which wanted to drill on sacred land at Noonkanbah. I wonder if those opposite would say these struggles lacked integrity.

These struggles continue today. It is the First Nations Workers Alliance that is standing in solidarity with the First Nations workers on the CDEP, this government's ruthless and draconian program that is tearing First Nations communities apart. It is the union movement that is standing in solidarity with the First Nations, and we call on the government to properly respond to the Uluru Statement from the Heart for a voice to the parliament and to entrench that voice in the Constitution. The government first said they rejected this. Then they changed their mind. Now they're obfuscating and diluting it—because the minister, the first Aboriginal person to hold that portfolio, does not have the support of his leader, the Prime Minister, to deliver what the First Nations have already asked for. So much for integrity!

If this government is serious about ensuring integrity, it doesn't need this bill. All it needs is a mirror; when it looks at the reflection, it will see the lack of integrity. And, if it looks deeper into our history, it will see that it has been the union movement that has ensured integrity.

I heard Senator Patrick speak, and I understand that the government has tried to ameliorate the concerns of the crossbench colleagues, while secretly negotiating amendments which the government hopes will win them over—and it seems from his statement that they have. But, if those crossbenchers are thinking that these few hurried amendments can repair the damage that this legislation will cause to the framework of industrial law, which is already stacked against workers, then they're occupying a parallel universe, because this legislation is cruelly and cynically calculated to nobble trade unions and hobble their ability to protect their members from those who simply want to maintain a vendetta against unions and who will never accept the basic rights of workers to organise.

This bill is dishonestly pitched. It purports to apply to trade unions the same legislative regime as applies to business and corporations, but even a scant reading of the bill reveals that there is no balance here. This legislation does not put unions and corporations on the same footing, because the requirements on corporations are much less onerous and less punitive.

Take the provisions in schedule 1, for example. It lays out grounds for disqualification that are breathtaking in their scope. The minister or any person with 'sufficient interest' can apply for orders to disqualify a person from holding office in a union. The threshold for disqualification is as low as you can go. The new and expanded grounds for disqualification require one or, at the most, two instances of misconduct for an application to be made. That misconduct could be merely technical, like an official not having given the right notice when needing to inspect a dangerous worksite or to investigate the underpayment of workers. And, yes, we can believe that the underpaying company, the very company that may be perpetrating the underpayment, could be the party that applies to have the official disqualified. There is no such process available in law for anyone with 'sufficient interest' to have an errant company director disqualified. So this idea that unions are having to toe the same line as the corporate sector is not just a furphy; it's a blatant distortion of reality, and everyone can see through that.

It's the same scenario when it comes to the deregistration provisions in schedule 2. There are already, in Australian law, provisions that can be invoked to have a union disqualified. But, no, we have to have a special law specially aimed at those people we don't like in certain unions because they've upset someone! There are already in Australian law, as I say, these provisions. But that's not enough for this government which is so intent on destroying the trade union movement.

Under proposed schedule 2, the minister or, again, that other, scary person—whomever that might be—who has 'sufficient interest' can apply to the court to deregister a union on grounds that require one or, at most, two instances of unlawful conduct. It doesn't even need to be repeated, serious or wilful conduct. There's no way that corporations are subject to laws as punitive, unfair and capricious as the proposed laws we are dealing with here that will apply to unions. If such laws were proposed to deal with bad behaviour in the business sector, imagine the uproar, and rightly so.

I see that the government is, as I've said, trying to hose down the concerns of Centre Alliance by proposing amendments that will give standing only to the commissioner of the Registered Organisations Commission. Well, pardon me for thinking these amendments are like a boarding school penalty regime, and it's being applied here as in the other policy domains that especially affect First Nations peoples. That is the mantra that one culprit justifies punishment for all, and that's underpinning this bill. The Registered Organisations Commission is the same so-called independent regulator that's already been discredited for its illegal raids on the office of the AWU. It's the same so-called independent regulator that forewarned the minister's office about those raids and enabled the minister's office to tip off the news media.

Let's have a quick look at schedule 3 and see if it measures up to the standards that apply to companies. Schedule 3 deals with administration of what are called 'dysfunctional organisations'. Again, there's no equivalent for companies. If there were any similar treatment, unions could claim to have 'sufficient interest' and apply to have a company that's causing them difficulty placed into administration. Wouldn't that be a novelty and wouldn't there be an uproar in our nation! That would be just preposterous. Finally, there's schedule 4, which provides the means for mergers of unions to be blocked by the Fair Work Commission. There's a public interest test to be applied to mergers, whatever that means. The public interest obviously will be a political interest being exercised by someone else, not the rank and file of the unions.

One thing is for sure: this is an outright assault on the rights of workers to organise and exercise free choice. If this bill is enacted into law, Labor will make sure that it haunts the government all the way to the next election. Your divine right to rule over workers is so tarnished by your arrogance that it stops you from seeing the damage you are doing to a balanced and civil society. The government hasn't learnt the lessons from its own history. Work Choices was John Howard's legacy, but its attack on workers went too far and the Howard government paid the price for that in the 2007 election. This coalition government has learnt nothing from that defeat, because the bill has the same smell of vicious and petty vindictiveness which infected the Work Choices act.

Labor, on the other hand, will continue to remain true to its values of fairness. I encourage my crossbench colleagues to step away from this government's blind arrogance and stand with the workers in their time of need. We published a dissenting report after the inquiry by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee into this legislation. Our report called on the Senate to protect and uphold the rights of the Australian workers by rejecting this legislation, and that remains our position.

It is probably hard for people who are born to rule to understand the significance of having advocates who are able to put your case for you because you are inarticulate, because you have not had the flash education, because you do not know how to navigate the pathways of the courts or the tribunals or even the halls of the employer. It is probably hard to understand—and I feel sorry for you, because it is when you get involved in helping liberate both the employer and the employee from that ideological position that some good things can flow, to the benefit of not only both entities but the country as a whole. Unfortunately, this bill does not do that. It is simply aimed at attacking the trade unions, because that is the ideological position out of which it has sprung.

Labor's position will remain in search of better ways to improve these situations. There is nothing in this bill with which we will agree, because there is nothing in it which is founded on principles of good policy and achieving a balanced civil society. How are you going to get your garbage picked up if you smash the workers? Where are the chardonnay bottles going to be thrown and who is going to pick them up? Do not be surprised if you have a rubbish pile outside your front door because of the way you want to bash up the unions and the workers in this country. This bill is born out of an irrational prejudice, out of an innate loathing of unions, and because unions exist to protect the rights of the workers, to advance their opportunities, to ensure there are safe working conditions and to ensure that there is a balance between what the employer delivers and gets and what the workers are entitled to receive—justice.

Solidarity is required here. It is time to stand with the workers to ensure that they get their just and proper rewards for their efforts—for their work and contribution to the productivity and profits of companies—and to not treat them or their advocates as if they are some kind of irrational, irresponsible entity within our civil and political society. Unions have contributed greatly to the social and civic society that we have. Without them, many of the privileges we all enjoy would not be enjoyed by us at all. It is unfortunate that this bill seeks yet again to isolate workers and create further class war, perpetrated by you on the other side.

This is a bill that has very little to recommend it to anyone. Senator Patrick has great hopes about what these amendments may do to the bill, but, unfortunately, I do not share his faith in a government that is about destroying unions and not upholding workers' rights. (Time expired)

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I learned of the tragic loss of a long-term Queensland coalminer at Carborough Downs, which is north-east of Moranbah, off the Peak Downs Highway. Brad Duxbury was a 57-year-old member of the Fitzroy Australia Resources team, and I have no doubt that his death will impact not only his family but the tight-knit Queensland coalmining community and equally the people of Moranbah and Coppabella. While I understand his family have asked for privacy as they work through this difficult time, I would like them to know that he has been recognised not only by his colleagues but by those here in this parliament as well.

We are here to discuss the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. The government have outlined that this bill is in response to the final report of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption and is to ensure the integrity of registered organisations and their officials. There are four schedules to the bill: schedule 1, which determines the disqualification of officers; schedule 2, the cancellation of union registration; schedule 3, the administration of dysfunctional unions; and schedule 4, a public interest test for union amalgamation.

I've always been a person who has understood the need for unions throughout Australia. But, at the same time, I'm also on the record as saying that I've forewarned union bosses that bullying and thuggery must be stamped out in accordance with public expectations. I won't beat around the bush: the CFMMEU are one of the main reasons we're here debating this bill. The breaches this union have been found guilty of have frustrated businesses, the courts and, at times, their own members. They have protested at my own party headquarters, but I also acknowledge that they have protested at Labor and Liberal offices as well. They're big and they're powerful, and I can understand why some people find them awfully intimidating.

On the other hand, we've got unions that represent musicians, the aviation industry, the finance sector, firefighters, the media, teachers, electricians, plumbers, nurses, cleaners, retail workers, maritime workers and many of our lowest paid blue-collar workers throughout the country. We either rarely hear from those unions or don't hear from them at all.

I have been an employer. The success of any business comes down to a number of factors, but one of those unquestionable factors is workers. I've always said that employees have a right to a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and they also have a right to return home safely to their family at the end of their shift. I'm well aware that this parliament has attempted to stamp out unfair behaviour between employers and employees through the implementation of the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman. I note in the Fair Work Ombudsman's annual performance statement that Sandra Parker states:

A changing workplace environment increases the opportunity for unscrupulous employers to evade detection, particularly where vulnerable workers are employed. Wage exploitation of migrant workers also remains a complex issue as it crosses employment, migration, corporations, taxation and other laws.

The Fair Work Ombudsman's annual performance statement also says:

I find this report alarming, and this is why frustration has grown amongst workers and their representative bodies across Australia.

Andrew White and Ewin Hannan from The Australian wrote a story on 20 November this year that stated that PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate wage theft of Australian workers is as much as $1.35 billion each year. Those most at risk of wage theft are construction, healthcare, retail, accommodation and food service workers. Construction is the biggest risk area, with as much as $320 million in annual underpayment of wages, according to the modelling by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

I've got no doubt a large portion of the problem is due to the complexity surrounding awards. This is something I blame on the government and unions collectively. The mere mention of reform in our awards or industrial relations sector triggers warnings of John Howard's Work Choices policy, but when you've got mum-and-dad businesses as well as corporate companies like Woolworths, Supercheap, Michael Hill and our own ABC stuffing up people's wages because of the complexity of working out hourly rates, we have to show some maturity and acknowledge that change is required.

The Attorney-General, Christian Porter, is on the record accusing companies of being hopeless when it comes to ensuring workers are properly paid. He said many employers spent more time on minimising tax than on their workplace obligations, and he's right. There were around 750 multinational companies operating in Australia throughout the 2016-17 financial year. Collectively they generated $612 billion in revenue but, after expenses, paid just $10 billion in tax. To put that into perspective, the 750 multinational companies across Australia paid an average of 1.63 per cent in tax. To offer a further perspective on how little multinationals pay, Australian smokers paid almost $13 billion in excise taxes that same year. That's $3 billion more than the 750 multinational companies who are ripping the guts out of Australia and sending their profits offshore.

The Morrison government's solution to this was a bill with a title that led the public to believe the government were doing something about multinational tax avoidance, called the Treasury Laws Amendment (Making Sure Multinationals Pay Their Fair Share of Tax in Australia and Other Measures) Bill 2019. For the sake of transparency, the bill raises a measly $125 million extra from $612 billion in revenue. That's an extra—wait for this—0.02 per cent in additional tax. I find it ironic that we're here to debate ensuring integrity in our unions but fail to hold the integrity of our multinational corporates to account, especially when we carry a national debt of almost $600 billion.

This government raises a valid concern when it argues that Australia's biggest union has racked up 2,000 breaches and over $16 billion in penalties over the last 15 years. But, on the other hand, only last week Westpac accrued more than 23 million breaches for potential money laundering. The breaches raise enormous concern that these overseas transactions could have ended up financing terrorism, child exploitation and pornography. It's mind-boggling. Each breach carries a penalty of up to $63,000, which could potentially see Westpac face fines of more than $1 billion. They're not the only ones. The Commonwealth Bank were caught doing the same thing in 2018 and agreed to pay $700 million for their illegal actions. Again, where is the integrity of our banking system?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison didn't seem too concerned when he was asked about the issue on the ABC last week. He was quoted as saying:

Well, that's ultimately a judgment for the board of Westpac, I mean it's for the board to make decisions about who should be running banks, not governments.

I would argue the government does have a say over the integrity of our banks, given it's a major stakeholder in each and every one of them through the Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding. As fate would have it, Westpac's chief executive, Brian Hartzer, announced he will step down on 2 December but take with him $2.7 million in lieu of 12 months notice. Again, where is the integrity? What I pick up from the public is a crystal-clear view that this government, and past governments, have one rule for white-collar crime and a much harsher rule for blue-collar crime. In fact, in a letter to the editor in today's Sydney Morning Herald, Jim Iveson from Hornsby Heights said, 'A more appropriate name would have been the ensuring inequality bill.'

I hate to break the bad news to Australian workers, but One Nation are now the only political party left defending Australian jobs. This week Labor again abandoned young and older Australians at a time when youth and over-50s unemployment is at record high levels. They did it by way of new free trade agreements with Indonesia, Peru and Hong Kong which approved an increase in the number of foreign workers as a part of those deals. If you've ever had any question over why wages have stagnated, it's because we keep allowing in cheap labour from developing countries. So, if Australian workers or unions want to be upset with anyone this week, don't be upset with the crossbench members; take your fury out on Labor and the Liberal-National government.

I have put forward 11 amendments to the ensuring integrity bill, which were circulated last week. Members of all unions should know that I've made these amendments with the support of Senator Roberts and your union representatives. The intent of these changes is to further protect Australian workers and minimise the risk of deregistration over paperwork misdemeanours and the like. One Nation note and appreciate the level of consultation from the Queensland Law Society. I also want to acknowledge the early dialogue with the unions that was initiated by Central Queensland union member Chris Brodsky. It was his approach and introduction that led to the very worthwhile discussions Senator Roberts and I had with the CFMMEU, the AWU and, in total, 10 union bodies across Australia. We haven't taken our role on this bill lightly when determining our amendments. It's also worth noting the input from the chambers of commerce, Master Builders, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the countless phone calls from workers across Queensland and Australia. I'd also like to thank the Attorney-General, who has made himself and his staff available throughout this very long consultation process.

Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the government's union-bashing legislation, the supposed ensuring integrity bill. But I want to begin by telling you a story. It's a story I previously told in my first speech in this place, but it bears repeating in the context of this legislation. It's a story that highlights the important role that the labour movement has played in many workers' lives, in my life and in the lives of many ordinary people around the world.

The story starts in 1987, just after I graduated from high school, a year before this chamber opened. I took a job on an assembly line at Johns Manville, a fibreglass manufacturer that had two factories in my home town. The work itself was tedious and hot, and the hourly rate was quite good. I worked eight-hour shifts, sometimes 12 hours, in a crew of four people. In our work, we had heavy canvas jumpsuits, and our job was to get giant rolls of fibreglass off a giant machine. We got them off the machine, we tested their quality and then we got them wrapped in plastic and shipped on down the line to go out to the shipping docks. Our products looked like massive paper towel rolls as we shipped them down the line. My responsibility in this factory was to attach adhesive tape to a four-metre-long rotating spindle so it could grab the next sheet of fibreglass as it came off the machine. When I worked there, that spindle rotated at about three kilometres an hour. I was told to stand back three metres behind a safety line. I held that adhesive tape on a specially designed hook, and I had in my hands, on that hook, a safety stop switch.

Months earlier, a young woman named Leslie Lambert had my job. She worked there before I started there. Leslie did not have the same safety equipment or practices. When Leslie was working there, the spindle rotated at about 20 kilometres an hour. There was no instruction to stand three metres back. There was no hook or safety switch. One afternoon Leslie was caught by the adhesive tape and spun around 10 times, cracking her head and back on the machine, before she was thrown to the floor. Leslie was 19 years old and she died that day. I know from Leslie's obituary that, like me, she was working in that fibreglass factory to put herself through university. I know that she, like me, was a member of the Teamsters Union, a union that had been pushing for safer conditions in that very factory on that very machine. Only a few months separated Leslie Lambert and me, a few months between a dangerous and deadly workplace and a safe one.

The difference between Leslie Lambert and me was just a few months—it is also 31 years. It is 31 years in which Leslie Lambert has lain in a grave in East Swanton, Ohio. It's 31 years in which I have been able to raise a family, get an education, migrate to another country, have a career, work, travel, raise my children—simply be alive, simply live a life. I know that the Teamsters Union made their members' safety at work a priority in that factory. I know they had my back as a worker and I have never forgotten that. You could say the importance of a safe workplace and the role that unions play in keeping workers safe and in advocating for safe working conditions is seared into my very existence. I concluded that story in my first speech by saying the following:

Here in the Senate, I will continue to fight alongside my colleagues in the union movement for all Australians to be paid a living wage and for all workers to be safe at work.

As I rise today, I do so to oppose this bill for that very reason.

With this bill, the government is orchestrating a direct attack on Australian workers and their right to be represented, their right to be safe in their workplaces and their right to be paid a fair wage. After this legislation went through a Senate inquiry, Labor senators said in a dissenting report that they had:

… significant concerns about the adverse impacts this bill would have on the rights of workers, workers' safety and the safety of the public, the economy and the state of democracy in Australia if it were to be passed by the Senate.

Those are significant concerns. They also said:

This Bill would allow for Government interference in democratically-run organisations in a way that goes beyond what we have seen in any developed country. Australia already has some of the most restrictive industrial laws in the world, and this would take the country further down an authoritarian path.

Labor senators did not make these observations lightly. It goes to the seriousness of the legislation that is before this chamber.

This bill is extraordinary for a number of reasons. It is extraordinary in its overreach, it is extraordinary in its callousness and it is extraordinary in its naked partisanship. The 45th Parliament saw the first iteration of this bill. It was dangerous and extreme then, and it was roundly rejected. Now this bill is back, with the government banking on the crossbench to pass the laws they couldn't ram through the last time.

It's important to understand what this bill would allow. Not only will the bill expand the grounds for disqualification but, worse still, the grounds will require only one or, at the most, two instances of unlawful conduct for an application to be able to be made. It doesn't have to be repeated, serious or wilful conduct. The minister or any person with 'sufficient interest'—and that could include employers or employer organisations—can apply to the court for orders disqualifying a person from holding office in a union. Imagine that. James Hardie executives could have applied to have persons who held office in a union disqualified when unions were trying to hold James Hardie to account for the untold damage they did to their own employees, the victims of asbestos related diseases. That is the kind of outcome this legislation would facilitate. That is what this government wants to do to working people and to their representatives. This bill would also include a minor issue like a technical breach, such as not giving the right notice in the right form when inspecting a dangerous worksite or investigating the rampant underpayment of workers. A person with a 'sufficient interest' could be the very business that was being investigated for underpaying workers. This bill will literally put the fox in charge of the henhouse.

On the other hand, directors of companies which recklessly expose workers to risk of serious illness, injury or death or who engage in systematic wage theft are not exposed to disqualification. To go back to the James Hardie example, those directors and executives don't face the consequences, but they themselves could raise a complaint that would be sufficient for the court to disqualify the representatives of the working people who are suffering because of their actions. If there were corporate equivalence in this legislation, a union could bring disqualification proceedings against the director of a company where the union was pursuing an industrial issue such as systematic wage theft, but this isn't proposed or even considered by those opposite.

Contrary to the government's claims, the requirements imposed by the bill go further than the requirements on corporations. In the bill, the grounds for disqualification from holding office in a registered organisation are broader than the grounds for disqualification of company directors. The penalty for the offence of a disqualified person continuing to hold office in or influence a registered organisation is double the equivalent provision in the Corporations Act. This bill also allows the courts to disqualify union officers for conduct unrelated to their union role. For example, an application to disqualify could be brought against union officials on the basis that they were not fit and proper persons because they had breached a law relating to the intentional damage of property. There is no equivalent disqualification for company directors. I can only imagine the uproar in the corporate boardrooms if there were.

The bill also provides new and expanded grounds for deregistration—again, new grounds that require only one or, at most, two instances of unlawful conduct for an application to be able to be made. Again, it doesn't have to be repeated, serious or wilful conduct. It can involve a single instance of unprotected industrial action. Yet there is no equivalent for companies to be deregistered if they breach industrial laws by stealing wages or breach workplace health and safety laws by failing to protect their employees. Again, the minister or any person with 'sufficient interest'—there's that phrase again—can apply to the court to deregister a union for breaching these extreme and intrusive orders. Again, no equivalent provisions exist for corporations. If the same thing applied to companies then the minister, an employee or any other person with sufficient interest could apply to a court to wind up a company or impose one of these orders. Wouldn't that be magnificent, if we were talking about a company that was stealing their workers' wages! I'm sure that companies wouldn't tolerate that. Why should they? And why should unions? Why should working people and their representatives tolerate such a scheme?

Clearly, these are extraordinary provisions. There is already an effective and longstanding regime for the disqualification of union officers and the deregistration of unions. The act was amended as recently as 2017 to provide that a union official could be disqualified on the basis of any civil penalty breaches of the Registered Organisations Act. There is currently a range of offences that automatically disqualify a person from standing for or holding office, including fraud, dishonesty, the intentional use of violence and damage to property—the latter of which has no equivalent for company directors. But we all know that union bashing is in the Liberal-National DNA. This is the party of Work Choices, after all, and this bill is from the very top drawer of their regressive agenda.

The government are claiming that this is a new and improved version of the bill and that it's been revised to 'more closely align these reforms with their corporate equivalents'. It is just not true. As the examples I have outlined demonstrate, it is simply not the case. There are no corporate equivalents. This bill is far more extreme in the regulation of unions than anything that exists for businesses or, indeed, politicians. There is no justification for the provisions in this bill; they go far beyond what the Heydon royal commission recommended. The hypocrisy of those opposite is astounding. On the Liberal Party's website they say this bill will cancel 'the registration of an organisation where it or its officials have not acted in the interests of members, not complied with court orders, committed serious offences or have a record of law-breaking.' The government would have you think they are the tough cop on the beat here, yet their actions speak louder than their words.

Seven years of this Liberal-National government show it is utterly toothless when it comes to real lawlessness. We have seen countless examples of employers ripping off their workers in recent years—7-Eleven, Domino's Pizza, Chatime, Michael Hill jewellers, recently Woolworths and even the ABC. And what has this government done to combat worker exploitation? Absolutely nothing. We've seen up to 100,000 people trafficked into this country by people smugglers through our airports. They've sent people here to work for as little as $4 an hour. They've subjected them to slave-like conditions and sexual abuse. Minister Dutton won't even acknowledge this crisis, let alone act on it. But do you know who has been standing up for those vulnerable, exploited people? Unions have been doing that. Where the government has failed to step in, unions have been acting to draw the attention of this government to the crisis that is occurring when it comes to the exploitation of temporary migrant workers.

This government, particularly this Prime Minister, had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support a royal commission into the banking sector. They voted against that royal commission 26 times. This week it was revealed that Westpac had broken the law 23 million times. What did the Prime Minister say about that? Did he say the CEO should keep his job? Did he have a view? No, he said that's a matter that 'the board and the management need to determine themselves'. So if you breach the law 23 million times it is just up to you and your board and your mates to work out amongst yourselves what happens, but if you misfile paperwork on three occasions this government will have you taken to court, have a democratically elected representative of working people removed from office and deregister the organisation from being able to stand up for the rights of working people. If that's not a double standard, I don't know what is. And it certainly isn't corporate equivalence.

This third-term Liberal government is a pantomime police force—unless you happen to belong to a union, in which case you can expect both barrels to be aimed at you. Never forget that this is the government that created the Registered Organisations Commission and then watched as a dodgy minister ended up before the Federal Court over serious allegations of misconduct. It is deeply ironic that the biggest fish that the Registered Organisations Commission nearly fried was Minister Cash herself, until the supposedly law-and-order party over there stepped in to protect her. Those opposite are the party of double standards; this bill proves that. And yet they come into this chamber and lecture the rest of us on being tough on lawlessness. So today we see a bill debated in this parliament that holds working Australians and their representatives to a higher and, I might add, extreme standard.

Now, I acknowledge there may well be legitimate concerns in the community, and they are sometimes shared by the Labor Party, about the behaviour of some union officials in some unions in some parts of Australia. As I've already shown, we have laws to deal with this. And Labor have shown how we will respond to this behaviour: we expelled John Setka from the party, and we were right to do so. But one person does not characterise an entire union or the entire labour movement.

The Liberal Party would have you believe that somehow 'union' is a synonym of 'crime gang'. The average unionist in this country is your child's teacher or nurse, or your local police officer. It's a firefighter. It's the person who goes to work on an assembly line or who works in construction. These are the people who belong to unions. We have unions in our schools, in our hospitals and in our hospices; we have unions for our journalists, our artists and our Defence Force personnel; we have unions for our police, our ambos and our firefighters. These laws will apply to every single one of them—each and every one. These laws will make it possible for government ministers and disgruntled employers to shut down unions and deny working people their right to choose their own representatives and push for decent wages and good conditions.

We must call this bill out for what it is. It is an attack on our schoolteachers, our police officers, our nurses, our ambos and our firefighters. The government would never propose laws like these for the banks, the multinational pizza chains or the celebrity chefs who have been found to be stealing wages, committing crimes and exploiting workers. No wonder that, under the Morrison government, Australia is set to be a country where your autonomy can be bought at a premium.

I want to end my contribution where I started, and that was with a story about how a union stood up for safety in a workplace where one of my colleagues had died because a union's warnings had not been heeded. Make no mistake: when we weaken the right of working people to raise their concerns and when we weaken the right of working people to come together collectively to bargain, to negotiate, to demand and to agitate for better wages, for better conditions and for safer workplaces—when we make that harder—we weaken not only the economy but the very fabric of our society and we weaken the very safety that Australians have enjoyed in their workplaces. The sad result, I fear, of this legislation will be not only a loss of autonomy for unions and a loss of democratic rights but the loss of good wages, secure employment and safe working conditions for all Australian working people.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has called the bill that we are debating tonight the 'ensuring integrity bill'. I refuse to call it that. It's the 'union-busting bill'. It's the 'attacking workers bill'. It's the 'looking after your corporate mates bill'. Integrity has been defined as making sure that the things you say and the things you do are in alignment. So, as we debate this bill, it's worth examining what the coalition government says about integrity and what it actually does. Are their words and their actions in alignment? Spoiler alert! As this debate has made very clear, it's as clear as day that they are not.

It is striking that today, as we have been debating this Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019, there has been a story in the news about Westpac, one of Australia's largest banks, failing to obey anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism-financing laws—a failure that allowed a Westpac customer to make payments to someone in the Philippines who was later arrested for child sex trafficking. But that's just one allegation. As others have also told us here today, it was one of 23 million—yes, 23 million!—breaches of the law involving more than $11 billion in transactions.

This case that has been brought by AUSTRAC comes after the royal commission we've already had which investigated the banks' behaviour. We've all heard so much about how the banks have let down their customers and the community, having devastating impacts on people's lives, and about exploitation by insurance companies, which are owned by the banks. We've heard about people being mired in paperwork on life insurance claims and denied access to money that is rightfully theirs.

You would think that, if the government were truly concerned about integrity, these things would have inspired them to act. You might think that, hearing the damage that these financial institutions have done to our communities, the coalition would want to change things for the better—but no. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a royal commission, and many of the reforms that were recommended by the royal commission haven't been implemented. And we haven't heard anything from the coalition about deregistering Westpac. The CEO has resigned, but the institution remains. And they will offend again—it's only a matter of time—unless we take meaningful action. But this coalition government refuses to do that.

Then, on the same day as this is happening, we have the Prime Minister directly calling the New South Wales police about an investigation into the behaviour of one of his cabinet ministers. Does that sound like integrity? Does it sound fair that he can just call up and ask the head of the New South Wales police about an investigation? Does that sound like the Prime Minister is acting with integrity? Why is Angus Taylor under investigation? Because there are unanswered questions about how a document with wildly inaccurate figures went from his office to a journalist, to attack another politician. Does that sound like integrity? And that's before we even start talking about the grasslands inquiry, where property that Angus Taylor part-owned was under investigation for breaches of our environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. And somehow, instead of acting with integrity, the government decided that they needed to review how our environmental laws interact with farms like that particular one part-owned by Angus Taylor. The compliance case resulting from this investigation hasn't been resolved, years later. Does that sound like integrity? No.

What is under attack today isn't any of those things. The coalition will not act to ensure integrity amongst financial institutions or amongst its ministers. Instead, it's going after unions. That's the coalition's real agenda. After all, this is the government that had a royal commission into unions that was a politically motivated witch-hunt. This is the government that set up the Registered Organisations Commission, which undertook investigations into the AWU—investigations which were found by the Federal Court last month to be based on suspicion and not to be based on reasonable grounds.

Unions are a cornerstone of our democracy, and they operate on a fundamentally different basis from corporations. Corporations exist to create profits for shareholders. Unions, on the other hand, exist to represent workers and to give them a voice, to advance the interests of their members, and, in doing so, to help all workers. For the benefit of the government, here are some of the things that unions do: they advise people about their rights and entitlements at work; they help address the power imbalance between workers and their employers; and they work to ensure that the lowest paid get a decent wage and a decent quality of life. We can thank unions for penalty rates and for shorter working weeks. We can thank unions for annual leave. These conditions weren't just handed down by gracious corporations; they were hard battles fought by unions, and these are the things that are under attack by this government. By making it harder for unions to operate effectively, this government is attacking the most vulnerable people in our society. It's seeking to reverse gains that have been made over decades.

This government demonises unions, and this legislation will open up unions to harassment, to interruption of their operations, and to being swamped by unwarranted legal action designed to try and destroy them. We know why: because, when workers and unions build their collective voice and collective power as an integral part of our democracy, they have the capacity to change the way this country is run. They challenge the power held by big corporations and governments who are acting to protect the power of those corporations. This government finds that prospect frightening, and so, to prevent it, it is acting to introduce laws that are incompatible with Australia's International Labour Organization commitments and will impose standards to which there are absolutely no corporate or political equivalents.

In contrast to the government's demonising of unions and union members as unlawful thugs, the average union member is a 46-year-old female nurse, much like the nurses that I met who were here in parliament earlier this week. A typical union worker is someone like my friend Huong, who works for the National Union of Workers and works with migrant women, originally from Vietnam, who speak very little English and work under incredibly difficult conditions in the textile, manufacturing and horticultural industries. Huong works with these women. She helps these women to stand up for their rights at work, to stand up against sexual harassment and to make sure that they get paid the wages that they are due, that they get to take the breaks they are entitled to at work and that the conditions that they are working in are safe. That's what your average union worker is doing. That's the type of work that unions do. A typical union worker is someone like the representatives from the CSIRO Staff Association who I met earlier this week, advocating for increased resources for science in Australia so that our talented postdoctoral researchers don't need to go overseas to find work because the jobs to undertake important research for the future wellbeing of our country no longer exist in Australia. That's the type of work that unions are doing right across the country.

We think of Australia as the land of the fair go, but if this bill passes we will become more like the United States of America, a place where giant corporations squash the little people and people have to struggle, juggling two, three or four jobs and working 50 or 60 hours a week. We're better than that here in Australia. We believe in a decent day's work to earn a decent day's pay. Yet this is the legislation that this government is introducing—legislation that will make it harder for unions to operate and harder to protect the rights and conditions of ordinary workers, ordinary people, at a time when minimum wages have fallen to a point where they are no longer a guarantee of financial security, when wage theft is rampant and when we have overworked, underpaid temporary overseas workers who are both being exploited themselves and undercutting the jobs and conditions of other workers in the country. It's a time when penalty rates have been cut. It's a time when big corporations are making record profits whilst the government is helping employers use labour laws to cut wages, conditions and workplace rights.

This is, in turn, impacting upon our society. In turn, when people are stressed about money and time, that makes everything harder. It is harder for us to build communities and connect with people around us, harder for us to campaign on the issues that we believe in and fight for the things that matter most, harder to protect our environment and to take action on climate change, and harder to stand up for the rights of First Nations people, LGBTIQ+ people and workers everywhere.

The coalition is attacking unions, attacking workers and tearing apart the fabric of our society. We must stand against this bill. We've got a different, better vision of Australia. The Greens have a vision of Australia as a country where we do all get a fair go and where the government stands up for people, not corporations. This bill is fundamentally unfair. There's a complete lack of integrity in the coalition's behaviour. While corporations are running rampant and ministers are not held accountable, the coalition are seeking to attack unions again. If the government were really committed to acting with integrity, they would be withdrawing this bill and they would be standing up for transparency, for accountability and for protecting the wellbeing and workplace rights of ordinary Australians instead of the interests of their corporate mates.

We're almost at the end of this second reading debate. There has been so much debate heard over the last two days, but it's not too late. If you are really concerned about integrity, it's not too late—you could withdraw this bill. I don't see it happening, but that's what would need to happen if we were to truly ensure integrity in our legislation and proposed bills in Australia today.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank all honourable senators who have made contributions to this debate on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019. The government acknowledges the important role of registered organisations, both unions and employer associations, in representing their members' interests in the industrial relations affairs of this country. This valuable contribution should quite rightly continue, but registered organisations should not be immune from the rule of law in carrying out their functions and their obligations.

This bill seeks to ensure that all registered organisations operate within the law. The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption uncovered widespread misconduct and, indeed, a culture of lawlessness permeating some organisations. Our nation's judiciary has repeatedly observed that some officers and organisations seem to show nothing but contempt for the law. Penalties imposed by the courts appear to be considered by at least one union to be simply the cost of doing business. The penalties are certainly not acting as a deterrent, if the ongoing breaking of law is any indication. Only last month, one Federal Court judge said that one organisation, the CFMMEU, was a serial offender and that it had acted 'in deliberate defiance of the law that it has been told, time and time again, it must obey'. This bill will ensure that the courts are able to more effectively deal with organisations and officers who repeatedly flout the law, who put their own interests before members' or who fail to meet the basic standards of accountability and governance that their members have every right to expect of them.

I turn now to senators' contributions during the debate. While unfortunately there isn't enough time this evening for me to bust every single myth about the bill that we've heard from Labor and Greens senators, I will certainly do my best to correct the record insofar as some of the most concerning and major misrepresentations are concerned. Labor claims, for example, that the existing regime is effective in dealing with organisational and officer misconduct, noting that courts can already disqualify officers. Not only does the ongoing law-breaking in some organisations clearly show that the current regime is woefully insufficient—a matter, as I've said, that our nation's judiciary has observed on a number of occasions—but opposition senators fail to acknowledge that, under the current regime, breaches of the Fair Work Act and other core industrial laws, such as in relation to coercion and bullying on worksites, simply can't give rise to a ground for disqualification, let alone deregistration.

There are also claims from those opposite that the regulator, the Registered Organisations Commission, will, out of this bill, wield a significant power. Let me be clear: what the regulator will actually be able to do under this bill is to apply to the court for certain orders if there are grounds on which to do so. This is an entirely appropriate and entirely usable function of a regulator. It is reflected in many other areas of the law. The only difference here is the organisations about whom the commission can make applications include trade unions, and that is why Labor and Greens senators don't like it.

It's also worth noting that, despite what Labor and Greens senators may seek to assert, the commission itself will not be able to disqualify officials under the bill, much less deregister an organisation. By contrast, in terms of regulatory powers, ASIC itself, the corporate regulator, does have the power to disqualify directors of a company or wind up a corporation in certain circumstances without court action being required. I note that APRA has similar powers of disqualification without the need to need to apply to the court in respect of banking executives thanks to the Banking Executive Accountability Regime, which was, of course, introduced by the coalition government. I will return to that later.

Those opposite have also contended that the commission is a politicised body, citing the matter of AWU v ROC in support of this allegation. Of course, what they have failed to mention, as they've consistently done in relation to this matter, is that the court, in fact, clearly found that the commission's investigation was not commenced for an improper political purpose. That is a rather important point. For completeness, I also note the advice of the commission announced this week in relation to the decision that it would appeal that matter. As such, the statements made by those opposite in relation to this matter are consistently but woefully inaccurate. One senator has gone so far as to call one of the commission's officials 'corrupt'. This allegation is quite simply outrageous and it is not supported—it's entirely unsupported, in fact—by the Federal Court decision.

There have also been some absurd claims about the sort of conduct that might lead to an organisation being deregistered under this bill. To be perfectly clear, it is simply not true that a union could be deregistered merely for submitting paperwork a few days late on three occasions. That could not happen under the bill. Moreover, there is in fact no conduct whatsoever that will automatically result in deregistration under the bill. Only the most serious law-breaking, such as convictions for crimes punishable by imprisonment for more than five years, can lead to automatic disqualification of an officer. It is the court and the court alone that is, appropriately, the only body with the power to deregister an organisation or disqualify an official, save for the automatic disqualification matter I've just referred to—although, even then, conviction by a court is first required for the ground to arise.

The bill is also very clear that courts cannot deregister a registered organisation or disqualify officers it if it would be unjust to do so, having regard to the nature of the underlying conduct and other relevant factors, such as circumstances of an individual's involvement, sanctions already applied to the organisation or its officers in respect of the relevant conduct or the effect of the court order on the members of the organisation. In addition, a court is expressly prohibited from deregistering an organisation or disqualifying an officer if, having regard to the gravity of the conduct in question, it would be unjust to do so. These, alongside a range of other safeguards included within the bill, provide strong protection against unjust outcomes.

There have also been claims in this chamber that the bill will erode workers' rights to be represented by their union. This is also a fallacy. The bill does nothing to diminish people's rights to form a union or to join a union, nor does it in any way limit the existing legal rights of unions to organise, to bargain, to take protected industrial action, to represent their members in relation to safety or underpayment concerns or to exercise rights of entry. As I've already said, the government welcomes the important functions performed by unions, and unions will remain free to perform those functions, as they should, following passage of the bill.

Rather than focus on the actual bill before them, we have also seen many in this debate wrongly suggest that the government is not working to stop wage underpayment and other breaches of industrial laws by employers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Two years ago the government took steps to strengthen the civil penalties available under the Fair Work Act for underpayments, through securing the passage of the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017. This act increased penalties by up to tenfold and gave more evidence-gathering powers to the regulator, the Fair Work Ombudsman. The government has also provided the ombudsman with additional budgetary support of $60 million to help it crack down on wage theft, on sham contracting and on other egregious lawbreaking by some employers—and it's additional resourcing that is reaping results. The Fair Work Ombudsman is recovering some 64 per cent more wages for workers in 2018-19 than in 2012-13—that being, of course, the final year of the former Labor government.

The government has also committed to introduce criminal sanctions to help stamp out deliberate and systematic wage theft by employers. Drafting of those laws has commenced. The government has sought community feedback to inform the development of a new offence and penalty regime. This is a significant reform, one the government committed to in March 2019, in response to the Migrant Workers' Taskforce—and something that I note was conspicuously, glaringly, absent from the Labor Party's commitments going into the last federal election. Have a look at their platform document—nothing.

The government has also recently indicated its support to further increase civil penalties on businesses guilty of underpaying their staff and to explore options to disqualify company directors from sitting on company boards where they have been found to be responsible for underpaying workers. Fighting wage underpayment and tackling lawbreaking by a militant minority of registered organisations are not mutually exclusive exercises. The government can do and is doing both.

Ensuring the health and safety of all workers is a priority for the government. Nothing in this bill hinders or in any way prevents registered organisations from advocating for the health, safety and welfare of their members and employees more generally. Despite the claims made by those opposite, it is not true that employers who neglect worker safety face no consequences. Under the current law, duty holders who expose workers, or anyone, to serious risk may well be found to have breached their duties and face criminal sanctions, including terms of imprisonment of up to five years for individuals or fines of $600,000 for individuals and up to $3 million for companies.

The claims that have also been made that unions representing nurses and childcare workers will be deregistered under the bill are outlandish. As noted earlier, the provisions in the bill concerning cancellation of registration clearly target serious, systemic misconduct, and the bill is very clear that courts can only deregister an organisation if this would not be unjust given the gravity of the relevant conduct, the effect of the order on members and other relevant matters. Those opposite seem to forget that the existing Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act—the one that they introduced—already contains the very ground relating to obstructive industrial action about which they are so concerned. What they are failing to tell you is that the provisions in this bill, including with the amendments, actually raise the bar on when this can result in deregistration, by limiting who can apply under the ground to the regulator alone.

Those opposite point to the democratic nature of registered organisations as a reason for not subjecting organisations seeking to merge to a public interest test, as though, apparently, all members of organisations are closely involved in decisions about whether their organisation should amalgamate with another organisation. But we know that, in fact, some mergers proceed with very little engagement at all by members. In the case of the significant merger of the CFMEU, the MUA, and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union, the CFMEU indeed successfully applied for exemption from a vote of its members on the merger. This meant that the members of the largest union involved in the merger had no say in whether it went ahead. Only 6,456 members out of 110,953 members, or less than six per cent of the total members of the CFMMEU, voted to approve that merger. In any event, the merger of some organisations can affect not only members but other workers and businesses and the economy more generally. Indeed, the CFMEU proved that point on almost a weekly basis. There is very much a public interest at stake, where, as we have seen, organisations with a long history of blatant law-breaking seek to merge with other organisations.

I also note that those opposite suggest that the government's concerns in relation to registered organisations mean that we apparently purport to say that bankers have some sort of immunity from the law—and that is simply not true. The government's new Banking Executive Accountability Regime, brought in last year, contains significant new penalties for relevant organisations that breach their obligations under that regime. For example, APRA can seek civil penalties of up to $210 million against organisations or disqualify persons for breaching their obligations. And, of course, under section 1317G of the Corporations Act, for breaches of civil penalty provisions in that act corporations can face civil penalties of up to $225 million and individuals can face civil penalties of over $1 million. There is nothing in this bill that we are dealing with in this chamber right now that is even remotely close to those penalties. Furthermore, APRA has the ability, under the Banking Executive Accountability Regime provisions, to disqualify directors from boards and executives itself without the need to take court action. Again, that is not possible under this bill, which only allows the regulator to apply to the court for such an order. And APRA is quite rightly investigating Westpac's conduct in light of the revelations of the past week.

The bill before the Senate concerns unlawful behaviour, law-breaking, in registered organisations. It is appropriately targeted at the sort of serious conduct engaged in by a militant minority of registered organisations and individuals who fail to take their obligations under the law seriously.

This evening I wish to place on the record my gratitude for and thanks to those members of the crossbench in this chamber who have been prepared to consider this bill on its merits and to engage with the government in good faith. I put on the record this evening that the government is happy to support the circulated amendments from One Nation, which build on the additional safeguards and protections included in the government's amendments and put beyond any doubt the fact that this is a bill that targets serious misconduct. I thank senators for their contributions and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Debate adjourned.

Senate adjourned at 21 : 14