Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak of hope. Earlier today, a journalist asked the Prime Minister a question. The question was: 'Prime Minister, on ensuring integrity, do you share the view of your colleagues that Senator Hanson has somehow been cowed by the unions, especially in the shadow of the state election in Queensland next year?' The Prime Minister's response included the following in relation to the ensuring integrity bill: 'It will come back into the House of Representatives this week after it goes back through the party room this week and we will take it forward. We will take it forward, because we believe in it. We believe that union thugs should not go onto building sites and threaten people, or in any area of the workplace and be able to do that, on and on and on and on, and not face any expulsion from the industry for doing that. We believe in that. They should be held to account. I put laws in place to do that to bankers. It should be in place to do that to union thugs too.'

I believe in that too. So there is hope. This government is not just going to lie down and roll over, following the disappointment of last week—

Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, we're not.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, we're not, Senator. The ensuring integrity bill will be returned to this place for further discussion. Why? Because the Australian people deserve better than the vile and contemptuous behaviour of the CFMMEU.

In the last 15 years, the CFMMEU has been slapped with $65 million in penalties, fines and legal costs—$65 million! Yet it makes no difference to the CFMMEU; they continue to act in a lawless manner. And don't just believe me, listen to the words of Justice Flick, one of our most learned jurists. He described the actions of the then CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party, in the Barangaroo case, concluding that the CFMEU, as it then was:

… has long demonstrated by its conduct that it pays but little regard to compliance with the law and indeed has repeatedly sought to place itself above the law.

Those are not my words; they are Justice Flick's words. He also said:

The CFMEU is to be regarded as a recidivist offender.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage any worse conduct than that pursued by the CFMEU.

Those are the words of Justice Flick. The CFMMEU is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party.

We don't have to go further than my home state of Queensland to see what a negative impact the CFMMEU is having on industrial relations in this country. There is case after case dealing with its unlawful behaviour. There was the Queensland Institute of Medical Research construction. In that case, the court said that prior penalties had not reduced the CFMEU's—as it then was—willingness to breach the law, and that it continued to thumb its nose at the industrial laws. That was about the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.

Another case was the Queensland Children's Hospital. And there was the Queensland University of Technology and the Logan Enhancement Project, where the CFMMEU and its official were fined $39,050 for offensive and unprovoked abuse of a subcontractor. There is more and more: there was the Bruce Highway Caloundra to Sunshine Upgrade Case and the Enoggera barracks case. Let me quote from the judgement in that case in relation to the then CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. Justice Rangiah said that the union's contract was deliberate, flagrant and systematic, with no evidence of any attempts by the CFMEU to take corrective steps to ensure that its officials and agents comply with the law. That is the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party, donor to the Australian Labor Party, with its representative sitting on the Australian Labor Party's national executive.

How about this one—the QUT Kelvin Grove Campus construction project. Justice Rangiah said in that case that the union's conduct was deliberate, flagrant and systematic, with no evidence of any attempts by the CFMEU to take corrective steps to ensure that its officials and agents comply with the law. Poor Justice Rangiah! I don't know where he is sitting when the listing clerk is handing out the cases, but the poor chap always seems to get the CFMMEU's vile and obnoxious behaviour cases. And don't forget—if I didn't mention it—that the CFMMEU is of course affiliated to the Australian Labor Party. And here is a classy case involving the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. It involves the construction of Ronald McDonald House. They can't help themselves, these people! In relation to this case, Justice Rangiah said the courts have repeatedly emphasised the need for specific deterrence of the union's conduct. He said the CFMEU has a very extensive history of contraventions of industrial laws.

But you wouldn't have known that if you listened to the speeches from the Australian Labor Party representatives in this chamber last week. In 37,000 words, they only mentioned the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party, once—and that was in relation to occupational health and safety. Come to Queensland, senators, and meet some of the occupational health and safety inspectors whose own occupational health and safety is endangered by the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. In relation to the construction of the Cairns Performing Arts Centre, the ABCC has had to bring a case against the CFMMEU official for acting in an improper manner and hindering and obstructing a Queensland workplace health and safety officer. This officer was just doing his job, trying to protect workers, when a CFMMEU official came up to him put his face a matter of inches away and repeatedly shouted 'You're a ****** dog!' Those are the actions of the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. There are representatives of the CFMMEU on the executive—state and federal—of the Australian Labor Party. The Australian Labor Party is institutionally incapable of dealing with the issue of the CFMMEU; they can't deal with it.

Following that case at Cairns Performing Arts Centre we then heard that Together Union, representing occupational health and safety workers, has had a list of sites where it has had to put in protected industrial action because it is too dangerous for the members of their union to go onto those sites because of the actions of the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. There are 17 sites. You can go onto their website and look at the sites. They are still there. I checked today. What did the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party, do when this came to light? They challenged the secretary of Together Union, Alex Scott. And what did Alex Scott say when he was challenged? He said his union would not be backing down from the site bans and argued that it was abhorrent—this is a trade union leader, talking about the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party—that the CFMMEU would seek to interfere in another union's claim to industrial action. The Australian Labor Party senators here today don't have to take my word for it. They can ask Mr Ravbar, who runs the CFMMEU in Queensland. They can ask him at their next national executive committee meeting, because he sits on the Australian Labor Party national executive. Whilst I am in this place I will shine a bright light on the lawlessness, bile and contemptuous behaviour of the CFMMEU, affiliated with the Australian Labor Party.