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

I rise to speak on the Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024 (No.2) and I congratulate Senator Cash for introducing this private senator's bill into this chamber. Nothing has been clearer over the past few months than the fact that this ABCC is absolutely needed, that a tough cop on the beat is absolutely needed in the building and construction industry. It was an absolute travesty that this Labor government, once again, following the instruction set given to them from above by their union masters, wiped out the ABCC, wiped out the tough cop on the beat that kept the building and construction industry in some semblance of order.

It is quite shocking, quite revealing, to see those opposite, after having spent years and years and years in opposition, running a protection racket for the ACTU and the CFMEU in particular over these kinds of behaviours, not after one or two but after literally thousands of examples of malfeasance, wrongdoing and criminal activity. They continued to run the protection racket for the CFMEU until the evidence just got so overwhelming that they themselves had to appoint an administrator to the union. That's how bad it got. But before appointing that administrator, of course, they made the situation worse. They made the situation worse by repealing the role of the ABCC, by removing the ABCC, the Building and Construction Commission, from the scene of the building and construction industry.

It's not Liberal Party politicians who are pointing out the serious problems with the CFMEU. It's Labor's own Fair Work Commission. The Fair Work Commission, in court documents, has said that the CFMEU broke the law 2,600 times. They have had $24 million levied against them in fines over 20 years. This is not something that just appeared a couple of months ago when the Labor Party finally decided to take action; this is something that has been going on and has been talked about for decades. That is why, when we were in government, we introduced the ABCC. We introduced the cop on the beat to police this industry.

Now, ironically, those opposite say: 'But it should have been tougher. It needed to be tougher.' We tried to make it tougher. We tried to give it more powers; you stopped us. The Labor Party and the Greens combined to stop giving the ABCC the powers it needed. Now, dragged kicking and screaming in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, finally the Labor Party has done something about it. It was kicking and screaming, and the reason why is pretty clear. The CFMEU has donated $6.2 million to the Labor Party in the time of Anthony Albanese's leadership alone. It is quite extraordinary that this is the sort of funds that are flowing from an organisation that broke the law 2,600 times—again, these are not my words nor Senator Cash's statistics; this is coming from Labor's Fair Work Commission—and have faced $24 million in fines.

I wonder what outrage we would see from those opposite and particularly from the Greens if a private company had faced 2,600 breaches of the law and faced fines of $24 million. Think about the howls of outrage that would have come from the Left if a company had been found to be that bad and that criminal—repeatedly, not just once or twice. There have been 2,600 incidents. There have been 2,600 breaches of the law. Think about the howls of outrage you would get from the Left, the Labor Party and particularly the Greens if a company had done this sort of activity. But what do you get about the CFMEU, particularly from the Greens? Absolute crickets.

The Labor Party has been dragged kicking and screaming to put the union into administration after years and years and years of running their protection racket. In estimates, time after time we saw coalition senators attacked for daring to raise issues about the CFMEU's behaviour on worksites. We got attacked over and over again for daring to say that there was a problem in the construction industry that needed to be fixed. Some industries do have systemic problems. They have systemic issues that mean that the government's response, the legal response to those industries, does have to be different. Not all industries are the same. We have a different legal framework around, for example, casinos because there is the risk of things like money laundering. So sometimes we look at an industry, and as legislators we say: 'There's a problem here. It needs to be fixed.' That's what the previous Liberal government did with the building and construction industry.

Labor unwound, again following the instruction list handed to them from above by the union movement. And then they regretted it because then, as the clear criminality and lawlessness inside the building and construction industry, particularly the CFMEU, came to light, they came under political pressure to act. I'm sure there was a lot of internal political pressure not to act as well, but they did act. But now they have an opportunity to actually restore the balance in the building and construction industry. There is plenty of evidence that the presence of and the behaviour of the CFMEU, their approach to the building and construction industry, has forced up costs for every Australian. And it's not just something that affects perhaps governments or large companies; it affects people. It affects people buying an apartment, buying a house. It pushes up costs in the industry, from some evidence, by 30 per cent—a 30 per cent increase in construction costs thanks to the behaviour and activity of the CFMEU. It is quite extraordinary that that is something that would be tolerated by any government.

The legislation before the chamber today gives us the opportunity to redress the balance, to get some semblance of legal order back into the building and construction industry. These behaviours, which have been on display in the past, have been clearly revealed through these 2,600 breaches of the law and the $24 million in fines levied against the CFMEU over the last 20 years. This kind of lawlessness, which, let's face it, is a form of corruption in our society, effectively allows for standover tactics, heavy-handed behaviour, bullying, abuse and potentially direct corruption—that is, the payment of bribes—to flourish. We need a tough cop on the beat to make sure that these kinds of behaviours are investigated and, when they are found, punished with the full force of the law. This kind of behaviour cannot be allowed to stand.

I find it quite extraordinary that in the Australia of 2024 we have someone like a John Setka who up until a few months ago was considered a leading light of the union movement, but who once he was removed from his union got a tattoo saying 'God forgives, the CFMEU doesn't'. That is a direct threat against Labor politicians, it's a direct threat against those who don't want to deal with the CFMEU, for very obvious reasons, and it's a direct threat to the legal system of this country. It should have opened everybody's eyes to just how dreadful this organisation has become. But it's not something that just appeared; it's something that has been around for a long time.

Once again, those opposite cry crocodile tears and say: 'You were in government. Do something about it.' We tried. We tried to strengthen the laws, and those opposite know this. We tried to strengthen the laws, and the Labor Party and the Greens blocked us at every turn. They did not want a tough cop on the beat, but they've got a chance to prove they're actually serious about this issue now. They have a chance to support this legislation, to recognise that this industry is one that does need special consideration in terms of the way it is policed and in the way it is oversighted by this parliament and the legal system as a whole.

Once again, if we saw an individual or a private company with 2,600 offences listed against it, if we saw an individual or a private company with $24 million worth of fines levied against it, that individual would probably be in jail and that business would be out of business. I mean, let's face it. But here we have a union that, sure, has been put into administration, but it still continues on; it still exists. I feel that unless we return to having a strong body with powers of investigation, powers to actually go into the workplaces to see what is going on in those workplaces, this bullying, this harassment, these standover tactics, this criminality—it might disappear for a little while, but it will creep back in.

Unless we take a stand, unless we stand up to the thuggery, unless we actually recognise what is happening here in a genuine way, unless the Labor Party stops following the playbook handed to them by the union movement, we will never solve these issues.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I rise as the shadow infrastructure minister to speak in support of the Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024, which was introduced by Senator Cash. This is an important piece of legislation that will restore the rule of law to the construction industry. It will help remove lawlessness, corruption and thuggery from our building sites. Importantly, this bill will help reduce the cost of building homes, roads, rail lines and other public infrastructure assets right across Australia.

The Albanese government's decision to abolish the ABCC has had a devastating impact on the Australian economy and on law-abiding businesses in the construction sector. We know that CFMEU controlled projects are 30 per cent more expensive to build. They also take 50 per cent longer to build. Not only are taxpayers being charged more; they have to wait longer to actually avail themselves of critical infrastructure projects to increase productivity and to make sure we move people and products around this country more efficiently and safely. Even on this very day, the brazen thuggery that has become synonymous with the CFMEU is on display, with a senior union official overseeing the intimidation of an Indigenous labour-hire company able to keep his job under the nose of the administrator that the minister, Murray Watt, assured us would have this union and its reckless behaviour under control. Minister, it's great to have you in the chamber today to hear the fact that the administrator isn't making a difference to the behaviour on site of the CFMEU.

We read in the Australian today that CFMEU administrator Mark Irving has decided to keep employing senior union organiser Joel Shackleton despite him being charged by police with threatening to kill an owner of an Indigenous labour-hire company and losing his right to enter building sites. I'll be interested to hear what the Minister for Indigenous Affairs has to say about this. The Minister for Small Business should be backing Indigenous Australians getting involved in the construction sector and not having to face intimidation and bullying by this union, which we all know has a culture problem. It always has, whether it was called the BLF or, now, the CFMEU, and an administrator is not going to change that culture, as we see. It's an absolute disgrace.

I wanted to read into Hansard today the report so the Australian people know exactly the character of this cowardly Labor government to take on this union and their inability to do that. According to today's Australian, the union official in question, John Shackleton:

… who was charged after being captured on video telling the owner "I'll f..king take your soul and I'll rip your f..king head off", would be employed in an office job with the CFMEU's Victorian branch.

…   …   …

Police said investigators would allege he made threats to inflict serious injury on two owners of an Indigenous labour hire company during a confrontation on a Victorian Big Build site …

…   …   …

The video shows Mr Shackleton telling one owner that he would "f..king end you, c..t, and you know it, don't f..k with me. I'll f..king take your soul and I'll rip your f..king head off. Don't f..k with me, c..t.. F..k you. You're a f..king dog."

If nothing changes, nothing actually changes. There's been a big song and dance by Anthony Albanese and Minister Watt on getting tough on the CFMEU. Well, what is going on on the building sites in my home state of Victoria? There's been a lot of big talk but, once again, no action from a government that thinks talking about it is the solution. It's like we're still in our Sydney university or Queensland university debating classes. We're still in student politics. We had that big rant and that big rally, but you lack the capacity and the political will to take the tough action. Why? Because you're inherently conflicted when it comes to this union. This union funds your election campaigns; this union controls the pre-selections of so many of the MPs and senators that sit in this place. It is no wonder that they lack the grit and the courage to take it on.

That's why I'm so proud to be part of an opposition that's not afraid to take this union to task. It's not afraid to move legislation in this place that will make a difference to the behaviour of the CFMEU. No-one should forget that, in getting rid of the ABCC, the government was aided and abetted by teal MPs in the lower house, and the move was actually made possible in the Senate only by the votes of a couple of independent senators and the Greens. Without those supporting votes of the teal MPs, it wouldn't have happened—very, very big on integrity, aren't they, unless it's on a building site, or unless it's about threatening Indigenous construction businesses. Without the teals, the independents and the Greens, Labor would never have actually been able to abolish the ABCC, which has resulted in the floodgates opening.

In the debate today, the coalition asks those that voted with the Labor Party two years ago to abolish the ABCC to reflect on the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in today. You were sold a pup by Minister Burke. He's a sweet-talker, we all know that—charming, some would say.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not me.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know, Senator Cadell. I'm with you there. But I'll give credit where credit is due. Flattery got Mr Burke everywhere. And in the end they folded and backed this government's desire and, indeed, the CFMEU's No. 1 ask going into the election: to get rid of the ABCC. They couldn't get it done quick enough. They can't get anything done about cost of living but: 'Mate, we can get rid of the ABCC for you. No worries there.'

To the independents and to the Greens in this place: this is the opportunity to rectify that mistake, because, as the facts make clear, abolishing the ABCC has had a material impact on worksites around the country, on the costs of public infrastructure and on bullying and intimidation, which is there for all to see.

On 9 September 2024, Labor's Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government reminded us all what it means to have the CFMEU in control of infrastructure, with reports that the midyear budget update will include millions of dollars to plug blowouts in road and rail projects. In fact, there was an additional $10.1 billion in that update that was to be given to states by Commonwealth taxpayers for project blowouts. Are state governments so bad at managing infrastructure projects? Or is that actually the cost of doing business on public infrastructure projects that are controlled by the CFMEU? Of that $10.1 billion blowout, $5 billion was for my Victorian state government, with not one extra kilometre of road built for all that taxpayer funded money.

These cost blowouts followed payments of $6.77 billion for construction blowouts last November, after Catherine King's short, sharp 200-day review of the infrastructure pipeline saw that Commonwealth taxpayers had to find another $6.77 billion for cost blowouts. Is it because Labor governments can't manage projects, or is it because they are complicit in CFMEU controlled projects blowing out costs? Every Australian family and small business, every taxpayer, is paying more taxes to cover the increased costs of delivering these cost blowouts. It is appalling, yet there is silence from the Labor Party.

There is silence in the face of Indigenous construction workers being bullied, intimidated and harassed. There is silence from the feminists in the Left when the misogyny that is endemic in the CFMEU is laid clear. There is silence from the feminists in the Greens. Why? Because somehow they owe the CFMEU, and this is how this union works. It is a quid pro quo relationship: 'I'll donate to you and I'll make sure you get preselected, as long as you stay silent when we do our business on building sites, when we drive up the costs, when we make it impossible for building businesses, mum-and-dad businesses, whether they're Indigenous or not, to actually turn a profit and keep people employed.'

It's an absolute indictment, and I'm hopeful that everyone in this Senate will actually support our measures to bring some integrity back into the construction sector. There were independent senators who bought Tony Burke's lines who now know they were sold a pup. Now, this bill is an opportunity for them to rectify that mistake and for the Greens and the Labor Party to realise that an administrator is not enough, that there does need to be a regulator in charge of this industry, which, historically, has lent itself to lawlessness, thuggery and corruption. It doesn't matter who's in charge. It's time to actually stand up and do the right thing—the right thing for the workers involved, the right thing for the businesses involved, the right thing for taxpayers.

New investments in the Bruce Highway, for instance, have seen heavy restrictions. Road works are needing to be fixed, and the damaged roads are unlikely to be completed next month as they can't actually get the project built because of go-slows and cost. It's just not good enough that, when the Prime Minister undertook a full review of infrastructure needs only a year ago, the government failed to identify new investments to improve the safety of the Bruce Highway. And now they are wanting to deflect attention. Labor had to cancel $2 billion from Greater Western Sydney infrastructure following the infrastructure review last year, stripping promised and contracted funding from the Cardinia and Yarra Ranges shires to seal residential roads in the Dandenongs. There are all projects that had to be cancelled or delayed as a result of billions and billions of dollars of cost blowouts thanks to the CFMEU.

Future funding for regional roads has been put at risk by construction cost blowouts, with the Albanese government promising to reduce Commonwealth funding for regional roads from 80 per cent down to 50 per cent. As was pointed out in Jane Halton's 2023 review of the National Partnership Agreement on Land Transport Infrastructure, reducing the Commonwealth funding split for regional roads will result in fewer regional projects being prioritised by states and territories. So, if you ever had any doubt that this Labor government doesn't care what happens outside capital city boundaries, it is evidenced in its own infrastructure national partnership agreement review, which blatantly states, if you change this funding arrangement to fifty-fifty, the states and territories will not invest in regional roads. So road toll will continue to rise and the cost of goods will continue to rise, as it costs more and more in time and maintenance for our truckies to actually deliver the same amount of goods. That is the reality of infrastructure funding under Anthony Albanese.

This bill represents a sensible return to regulating a lawless industry that Labor seems intent on continuing to fulfil, enable and facilitate. Despite the minister's tough words, once again we see Labor failing to deliver on the cost of living, for the regions or for Jewish Australians, with their response to the Gaza war, but delivering for one stakeholder, the only stakeholder that really matters, and that's the CFMEU.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The problem we have with this government is that it seems unable to admit when it got it wrong. They've got it wrong on budget spending, which has added fuel to inflation around our country. They've got it wrong on energy policy, where their intransigence on nuclear energy is pushing up the price of power and leaving Australia behind in the race to build data centres and catch up with the information economy. And they clearly also got it wrong here when it came to abolishing the cop on the beat, the regulator to deal with misconduct in the construction sector.

Obviously, this has been a problem that has bedevilled Australia's construction sector for decades upon decades. It goes way back to the seventies and eighties, and Bob Hawke had to deal with this when he was in government. But at least then we had a prime minister that was willing to stand up to the thugs and some criminals that have often beset our construction sector. He took them on. Instead, when Anthony Albanese became Prime Minister he, very differently from Bob Hawke, rolled over to the criminals and thugs in the construction sector.

It should not have been news to anyone, least of which the Prime Minister of the land, that there were elements of criminality and thuggery in our construction sector. This has been a longstanding problem. In the last couple of decades, the CFMEU has been found guilty over 2,000 times—I'm told over 2,600 times since 2003—and paid $24 million in penalties. It's a shocking rate of law-breaking that is hard to compare to any other organisation in this country, certainly no other organisations that are welcome in polite society, as the CFMEU were for the Labor Party and the Greens. They were happy to take donations from the CFMEU, who regularly broke the law, and, worse, they were happy to then change the law of the land in response to the CFMEU's requests to take away this oversight and control over their law-breaking activities.

The ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, was clearly working. It was working to at least help rein in some of this blatant breaking of the law. The ABCC actually had over a 90 per cent success rate in prosecutions, and they weren't short of work, as I've mentioned. They were doing their job—and doing a job for all of us and our country. But Anthony Albanese came into government, and he got the request from his donors in the CFMEU and then went to remove this cop on the beat that was reining them in. We've seen the shock from the new minister for workplace relations and others who said: 'Wow, we didn't know there was all this criminality in the sector. What a shock—what a surprise!' It's even become impossible for the former defenders of the CFMEU to defend the indefensible, and we've seen multiple revelations, mainly from the good work in the Nine media network to expose rampant criminality—not just thuggery, not just bullying, not just harassment that we all knew occurred—across the CFMEU. It became too much of a stench for even this Labor government to ignore.

Instead of just admitting they got it wrong and re-establishing the ABCC to get this cop on the beat going again, they are instead putting in place only a limited control, a temporary control, on the CFMEU in response to the public outcry. I think it would be much better to go back to what was working. That's what this bill does, and that's why I'm happy to support the efforts of my colleague Senator Michaelia Cash to just re-establish and go back to what was working. It's very simple. Put it back in place. It had been in place for many years. It works. We can just reintroduce this legislation. There is no need for heaps of new committees or drafting of new laws. It's all ready to go. Here is one we prepared earlier that works. Let's just do that.

This bill obviously is to re-establish the ABCC. There are two Cs in that name, but, in the rest of the time I have available here, I'd like to concentrate on three Cs here. The three Cs that bedevil our construction sector are criminality, impacts on cost of living, and conflicts of interest. As I said, we have seen terrible examples of criminal behaviour from CFMEU officials, including cosy relationships with bikie gangs and outright criminals. That is why we have supported the government's efforts to place the CFMEU into administration. But to me it does not seem to be a strong enough action here, especially when you see the administrator that has been appointed already comment that the level of criminality is much, much worse. I've found his name now. This is Mr Mark Irving KC. He's admitted that the union's corruption is much worse than initially reported. What extra steps are being taken, given that information, to rein this in? Another step we could do is pass this legislation and get it back into place.

This exposure of criminality should not come as any news to people that have been following this. There have been many examples of the CFMEU's misconduct in recent years. There has been much speculation on its influence over, or with, bikie gangs and others. And, now that it's all been confirmed, the government is just acting too late. That belated action from the government has also had a real cost on all Australians, not just those that might be directly affected by the criminal behaviour of this organisation. The rampant thuggery, bullying, threats and intimidation that exist in this industry have ruined the productivity and performance of our construction sector, and this has a real and direct impact on Australians in many, many ways.

Perhaps the one that is most felt by Australians today is the fact that we don't have enough homes for people. I'm astounded that I now live in a country where there are large tent cities in our major capitals. It is incredibly sad when you walk or run around our major cities and you have to go past people in the most dire circumstances who do not have a roof over their head. I never thought I would live in such a country. I live in Australia; Australia would never get to that position. We're a prosperous and wealthy nation. Why can't we provide homes to the Australians that live here? There's always an element of homelessness, of course. Bob Hawke did try and say, 'Get rid of homelessness.' We're probably never going to get there. People are often in sometimes unfortunate, desperate and very tragic circumstances. But it is clear that many of these families living in tents, who otherwise often have jobs and have lives that are functional, in any other normal time would be able to have a house. There are simply not enough houses for Australians. Some people are the victims of that shortage and have nothing but a sheet of plastic to put over their head every night.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but the situation is not helped by the shocking underperformance of our construction sector, unable to build things at a reasonable cost. We have actually been building fewer and fewer homes over the last few years, despite the increased demand and the increased population growth we have. We've crashed to below 170,000 homes being built a year, despite bringing in 500,000 people a year in net terms. It's just not enough homes being built, as well as needing to replace homes that are knocked down from time to time that are old and condemned. It's just not enough. We should, therefore, be seeking to increase and uplift the performance of the construction sector so we can build more homes without them costing so much. It's pretty hard to build a home now for less than $250,000 or $300,000. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. That is why we've got this housing shortage now in our country. It's not helped by the fact that we have in this industry, the construction sector, a situation where the people building the homes, the people who have to hire all the contractors, the subcontractors, the chippies, the sparkies, the concreters and everybody else to build a home, often live in fear at the moment. If you talk to many of these small businesses, they are in fear of the CFMEU and the retaliatory bullying tactics that could be inflicted on them if they have the temerity to employ people that are not approved by the CFMEU just to get something built or get a job done. That clearly has impacts on being able to get jobs done. If you've only got a small menu of suppliers and contractors to deal with because of the CFMEU's corruption and criminality, you're going to have fewer homes built. You're going to have a lot more delays in construction. You're going to increase the cost of home building in this country, and that is what we see in front of us.

So passing this bill would help alleviate this situation. We have a situation right now where the government are coming in and waxing lyrical about their rent-to-buy scheme. They think it's going to be the panacea or solution. It's clearly not. It's clearly not going to build enough homes. We have to lower the costs and make it easier for all businesses, the myriad thousands of builders across our country, to get things done. Our housing crisis is not going to be solved by spending more taxpayer dollars from Canberra. It's going to be solved when we remove the red tape and constraints that are holding back the many thousands more people who actually know how to build homes.

The Labor Party might be good at some things. I don't know. I struggle to think of them. But I don't think they're good at building homes. I don't think I'm good at building homes. I don't think Senator Cadell is good at building homes. I don't think any of us are good at building homes. The people who are good at building homes—surprise, surprise!—are builders. So why don't we help them? Why don't we help those businesses take this anchor and weight that is the CFMEU' crushing anvil off their heads and off their businesses and help them do what they do best for the Australian people and fix this crisis that is in front of us?

On the cost of living, the other aspect is our infrastructure challenges. It's not just our homes, of course. In my state of Queensland, I don't understand what's happening with the Bruce Highway. I drive the length of that, from Rocky to Brisbane, five or six times a year at least. That's the length of it. I drive parts of it many more times throughout the year. I've never seen it like this. It's never been a great road. No-one has ever written poems as an ode to the Bruce Highway. But it's been workable. You could drive it. Some parts of the Bruce Highway have been good. The coalition helped fund the Gympie Bypass. That's going to be an excellent road when it opens in about a month. It's a small section. Now north of Gympie you get these potholes in the road. If you're in a little hatchback, you're taking your life in your hands, particularly at night when you can't see these things. They're as big as a tyre, these potholes. You're going to lose your car in them. You'll bottom out. This is a national highway. It's not some rural road. It's the No. 1 national highway linking our major towns, and it's been left in a state of disrepair.

I don't know all the answers to that. The Queensland government won't let us meet with the main roads department anymore because they like to play politics with people's lives on the roads rather than just get the information out there. But at least partly it can't be helped by this situation in our construction sector where, again, every construction project and every road project seems to come back 50, 60 or 100 per cent more in costs than what it was originally costed at. The Rocky Ring Road was originally costed at $1.1 billion and it ended up coming back at $1.6 billion or $1.7 billion. A lot of contractors blame the Queensland government's union-aligned so-called best-practice industry conditions or something—I can't remember what the 'C' stands for—for that result. It has not helped. People's lives are hurt by this. There are lives being lost on the Bruce Highway because we just can't simply build something like a road anymore in this country. What is happening to our nation? It's crumbling before our eyes.

Finally, I want to finish on the other C: I want to highlight the conflicts of interest. This government has taken millions and millions of dollars from the CFMEU in donations to the Australian Labor Party. Since Anthony Albanese has been leader, it's over $6 million. It's hard to believe that the government won't agree to pay that money back or give that money to charity or something. Obviously, they don't want to give it back to the CFMEU, but that's tainted money now. It's come from an organisation that's been exposed as being criminal and as being engaged in criminal conduct. How could any self-respecting political party continue to hold those funds when they've got such a taint to them? Give them back. If you're really fair dinkum about trying to fix the mess in our construction sector, give that money back and work with the coalition to get a strong cop on the beat back into the construction industry.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really should coordinate better with my coalition and party colleagues when we sit here, as most of my talking notes were very similar to Senator Canavan's. When I get up here and talk about this bill, the Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024 (No. 2), I want to focus on that second part: reducing building costs. Many people sitting in here will say, 'Why do I care about the coalition beating up on a union? You know, this is politics. This is normal. It doesn't affect me. It doesn't worry me. It doesn't do anything like that.' But it's far more than that. This is about what Senator Canavan said: the very fact of being able to afford housing.

Housing is such a big debate in here. We hear government ministers stand up and throw barbs at the Greens in their corner and at us for not passing their bills that will put more money into the housing market and, no doubt, will make it easier for some 10,000 people to buy a home, but it will just give them a comparative advantage over the 10,000 people who were going to buy a home anyway but will no longer have that advantage. So it's just choosing who gets the home—nothing more. It's not building more homes and putting more people in homes. That is what this comes down to.

If you are in a major city where there are these apartment blocks and where there is heavy union influence, you are paying too much for your unit. The estimates are that the cost to get into your unit are 30 per cent higher, so you are paying more. That's a real cost to your pocket. That is a real cost for people trying to get into their first home, to get into their unit or to build these things. It is a housing supply thing. But what's not seen is the number of projects that don't go ahead and the number of builders who decide not to go ahead with a proposal and a development because it is no longer viable because of these costs. When they are saying, 'No, I won't go ahead with this apartment block,' or, 'No, I won't go ahead with this land development,' or, 'I won't go ahead with these things that would house people, these bedrooms that we would put people in at night,' it means more people stay homeless, and it means more people bid higher again. It means that, on top of the higher construction costs, people have to pay more for a lesser supply of housing out there.

If you're at home and you're concerned about the cost of housing, this has a direct impact on you. If we limit supply and we raise the cost of that supply, we will build less. It is simple economics, and the control of major projects that the CFMEU has shown over time has had that effect. Putting some more cash in the hand of others simply feeds this beast of industry, this beast of corruption, this beast of greed. What we need to do right across the spectrum is build more, build more quickly and develop more, and people who build bedrooms, create land and create homes are the solution, yet they are demonised in here.

Now, I will demonise some people straight after that. There are people in this industry who paid the bribes and the kickbacks and then relied on consumers to pay higher prices so that they could pay the union officials for the access and the right to sites. That is wrong. What this legislation is seeking to do is to bring in a policeman—a body that can try and catch some of that, but it will not catch all of that.

When we were talking about the bill to bring in the administrator, I spoke of seeing firsthand a video of a site manager being assaulted by union officials on a site in the Hunter Valley. I went to the developer and said, 'Do you want me to raise this?' and he said, 'No. I am told my building will never pass inspection if I cause a problem. I am told I will have safety breaches on my site every week if I raise this.' The point of the piece was that he would no longer have a problem on site if he didn't raise a problem with the assault of his site manager. I'm not sure what his site manager thought about that, but that is the deal that had to be done. If that is not basic corruption and criminality, I don't know what is.

And we heard from other speakers here that over 2,000 breaches have been found and over $24 million worth of fines have been levied. If this was in America, this would be a RICO case. This would be a criminal organisation, not a union. But, here, we had the perverse case of this government removing the policeman only to deal with the consequences of it months later. I spoke on that bill that night about it not being a problem of a union; it was a problem of the wrong people creeping into that union and not being dealt with. When you get criminals coming in, when you get corruption coming in, and you don't have the leadership strong enough to say no—a leadership so weakened that they say, 'Yes, come on in and create this thing'—that is what's wrong. When you don't have a policeman, this makes it worse.

Imagine watching a football game—I'm talking real football, rugby league, here, Senator Ciccone—where you take the referee off the field. When you take the referee off the field and say, 'Have at it,' you don't have a game; you have a farce. You have arguments. You have fights. You have everything wrong going on. And that is what we have here. They took the referee off the field in the ABCC. You at home might be saying, 'Why should it matter to me?' You pay more for everything.

Government is not great—we heard the senator—at building houses. Of course they're not. They're not great at doing anything. I went into my new office. I'm a new senator. I've only been here two years. They gave me a big, beautiful, empty space and said they'd develop it and put walls in and all these sorts of things over time. So I don't have an open space to allow people into our office, other than the front door, and then they've got access to everywhere. Just a mere 18 months after I came here, they got that done. I have a mate who's a shopfitter and does this professionally. They walked into our beautiful open space, looked up at the high ceilings—it's a heritage building—and said: 'This is an expensive shopfit. This is $250,000 to $300,000.' I said, 'Wow, that's expensive.' Of course, under our disclosures, all the expenses that go to our offices are disclosed. We don't have a say in it. Every senator will know here that they come in, they do what they do and it goes on your expense account, but you don't actually choose the contractor or the project.

But what happened when our budget finally happened? It's a lovely office. It has probably five or six internal walls, a slight refit of a bathroom and a few other things—a lot of data and cabling and a bit of security; I get that. But what did it cost? Our budget as a government is $800,000 for what a professional shopfitter says is $250,000 to $300,000. I have no doubt that will come up on my expense report as an extravagant office that I've asked for. But that is the process of government here. It is the process of involvement and red tape and everything we do and the cost being levied by the rules of those in power. I'm talking about not just unions but big business that paid these bribes because it was cushy. The ABCC should be able to come down on all of those people and say that is wrong. So, when you're at home and you're paying these extra expenses and you can't get a home, and we're bringing on all these people, and people are saying no to developments and no to bedrooms so more people remain homeless, that is a real problem.

And then we look at the infrastructure side of things. When they build your roads, when they build your dams, when they build your water infrastructure, when they build all of that, it's the same thing—30 per cent higher costs. So, if you're looking at $100 billion infrastructure pipeline—I think that's the number for it—you're talking about $30 billion in extra costs because of these rules, because of these kickbacks, because of these problems. That is half the cost of running the NDIS for a year. It is two-thirds of the cost of Medicare for a year. I think the Greens have costed dental for elders and stuff like that at the PBO for putting a senior and child dental benefit scheme in. The cost of extra infrastructure is three times the cost of a senior and child dental benefit scheme. That is the thing you don't get because of these actions. This is the money we have to tax taxpayers more to do these things. So, at home in mum-and-dad land, you're not only paying extra for the homes, the buildings and the construction you get; you actually have to pay more tax to compensate the government for the extra cost in infrastructure. One thing for sure, coming off the supermarket inquiry, is that supermarkets will always get you, but the government will always get you too. We don't miss out on a tax dollar when it's there to be had. If we're paying more for stuff, we know where we can get it: from your pocket. This is what happens.

This is a bad situation that has got out of control because this government took the policeman off the beat. They took the umpire off the field, and everyone suffers. It's not just a coalition opposition beating up on union; it's standing up for the basic economic principles of not allowing standover and bullying tactics. I go back to the union links and their actions in this regard to organised crime. It is hush money being paid by corporations to the unions for access. It is donations being made to organisations that make decisions about the rules. It is the very worst of corrupt practice, when the powerless, the home buyers and the small contractors, are run over by the powerful, which are the big corporations willing to pay kickbacks and the unions willing to take them. That is fundamentally why we're here, to protect the little people, to protect those that don't have the power. This bill and bringing back the ABCC is not a fix all; it is a step in the right direction. Reducing building costs; getting more people in houses; getting your houses cheaper; getting developers to say yes to the projects that are marginal, so there are more choices for you to go and buy; greater supply—that is the housing policy we have here. Greater supply is what's needed in housing. More money into housing can just pump up everything if we're not getting the supply right. The actions here have done that.

Let's go back to the integrity bit. If we want to vacate the field, if we want to remove law, if we don't want to stand up and say, 'We set the rules,' and if we create a vacuum, other people will fill that vacuum with their power. We've seen it in countries when there is a coup where there is a vacuum in power. Bad elements come in. Chaos creates opportunity for bad people. That is what's happened here. Within months of removing the ABCC, the stories came out. It is human nature. Human nature loves chaos, and it was created when we took the players off the field. Bringing it back will create some form of intimidation, some form of barrier, to going out and rampantly doing this. As I said, it won't fix all. It will still have the powerful running over the powerless.

In the debate on the appointment of the administrator, I remember hearing Senator Scarr tell a story that has had the most impact on me of any speech I've heard in this place at any time. It was about a poor worker, a young guy, who worked for an organisation that didn't pay the right amount of money or didn't do the right thing by the union. He got another job and wore a T-shirt from his previous employer to a site. He was locked in a shed, bullied mercilessly and threatened. He went home, put himself in his bedroom and made sure he never woke up. He took his own life because he wore a T-shirt to a union site. Nothing has struck me in this chamber as much as that story. Does anyone deserve to lose their life for wearing the wrong T-shirt to work? Don't ever think that union's power didn't get too far—let's not even call the CFMEU a union, because a union represents workers and does the right thing. It became a crime body. Don't think it didn't have too much power and wasn't abusing that power. That story in itself is enough to say it is wrong.

We've put them in custody for a couple of years to have a look at what they've done; I get that, and that is something. But, when they get out, haven't we got the same animal back on the streets? Without the policeman to enforce it, without the rules to contain it and without the ability to say, 'You are doing the wrong thing,' the vacuum will create chaos again. That's why this bill is so important. This bill is important so that that story never has to get retold; this bill is important so that people can afford houses; and this bill is important so that you get the infrastructure you need, the government can spend money on better things and we can all move on.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Building and Construction Industry (Restoring Integrity and Reducing Building Costs) Bill 2024 (No. 2) sets out to do exactly what it says, which is restore integrity and reduce building costs in an industry which is incredibly important for Australia. The construction industry accounts for about 10 per cent of Australia's GDP, but we also rely upon it to build new hospitals, roads, airports, transport infrastructure, schools and homes.

We need to recognise that the construction industry is in great trouble right now. We've seen labour productivity in the industry fall by 18 per cent over the past decade. So, for a job that would have taken you 100 workers to complete in six months, say, in 2014, you now need 18 extra workers—more workers, less output. We've also seen some 3,010 construction businesses enter external administration in the year to 1 July 2024, which is up 30 per cent from a year earlier. In fact, construction businesses now account for one-quarter of the insolvencies that are taking place at a record level in Australia.

We also see that housing targets are not being met. The necessary increase in the supply of residential housing is not even close to being there. The National Housing Accord sets a target of 1.2 million new homes over the next five years. To take the New South Wales share as an example, that is 377,000, which means New South Wales needs to be building approximately 75,000 new homes per year. But there were only 43,000 new homes commenced in New South Wales in the year to March 2024. If you look back to the period of 2013 to 2018, New South Wales was building 67,000 new homes per year on average. It was pretty close to the target of 75,000, but right now it's languishing at 43,000 homes.

The other big problem, of course, is that inefficiency, low productivity and failures in the construction sector—business failures, insolvencies—are pushing up the costs of infrastructure, meaning major projects like the Western Sydney airport, new hospitals and schools and highway upgrades are costing much more than they should. This is because this is a sector which, since this government has come into office, has been characterised by a lack of competition and an abuse of market power. There has effectively been a monopolistic provider of labour to the construction sector, and that has been the CFMEU.

Unsurprisingly, when a single player enjoys market dominance, they tend to abuse their market power. We have no problems recognising this in other sectors. Whether it's in retail, with the supermarkets; in electricity and gas, with a couple of major players; or in banking and finance, with the four major banks, we recognise that when market power is concentrated the case for the abuse of market power is rife. We often either create a special regulator or give enhanced powers to the ACCC or other regulators to police those sectors. That is why the coalition government first established the ABCC, the Australian Building and Construction Commission: to tackle lawlessness, corruption, thuggery and intimidation in the sector which were caused by the dominance of a single player and a single union—the CFMEU—which exerted a stranglehold over providers and was able to use its market power to intimidate the purchasers of its services.

That body, the ABCC, had a 91 per cent success rate in prosecuting union misconduct and was also highly successful in curbing intimidation, thuggery and corruption in the sector. Unsurprisingly, the CFMEU, which saw its own powers trimmed by this body and saw it could no longer use its market power to get its own way and to dictate terms, lobbied for the abolition of the ABCC. That's why the Albanese government—which has taken $6.2 million in CFMEU donations since Anthony Albanese became the opposition leader, in 2019—abolished the ABCC as one of its first acts in office. This was a quid pro quo. The CFMEU made quite clear that their continued support for Labor, not only at the 2022 election but with their continued donations, was contingent upon their interests being looked after, and that's what has happened.

Wind the clock forward two years, and, as a result of the media expose that was too large and too significant to ignore—and full credit to the Nine media group for exposing intimidation, corruption and thuggery in the building sector, as they did—Labor has been forced into appointing an administrator into the CFMEU. The administrator has said that corruption was worse than expected, more entrenched, and that the problems are going to take longer to fix. Why is this such a problem? Some of the biggest buyers of construction services are Labor state and federal governments, and they've been handing over millions of dollars of taxpayer money in inflated costs to the CFMEU, leading to big cost blowouts, which we have all heard about, on infrastructure projects. But we've also seen, in the private sector, the CFMEU effectively allowed to exercise a veto so that big private civil construction companies do not get to decide who they employ; the union does—the CFMEU gets to do that.

The result of this for residential building is that workers are fleeing to the union dominated projects, where wages are higher because the CFMEU demands as much from the Labor government, and we're seeing smaller construction players in the residential sector, by and large, go to the wall, as well as worker shortages. As a result, residential construction, particularly for detached residential dwellings, is almost flat. It's largely unviable commercially, at least in New South Wales, to build detached dwellings, simply because the costs are too high and the labour is too scarce.

The problem with the government's approach of appointing a CFMEU administrator is it's not going to fix the problem. If you talk to anyone in the private sector, they are still intimidated. They fully expect that, once this period of administration is over, the CFMEU is going to return stronger than ever, more bent on revenge than ever, more likely to abuse its market power than ever. And, indeed, they are telling the private sector that explicitly and implicitly. No-one in the private sector is prepared to look at renegotiating enterprise bargaining agreements or look at touching any of the special privileges the CFMEU enjoy on their sites or touching the veto they exercise over their choice of subcontractors. They are concerned that in a year or two the CFMEU will be back, and, if they haven't played ball in the meantime, the CFMEU will extract their revenge.

The Hawke government was brave enough to take on the BLF because of the problems it was causing the construction sector. The Howard government was brave enough to take on the Maritime Union of Australia in the late 1990s and early 2000s because of the stranglehold that union militancy was exacting on our waterfront. Given the importance of the construction sector to the national economy and given the fact we all pay a tax, either directly through our taxes or indirectly as purchasers of these services, any Australian who buys a home, who seeks to do a renovation or who wants to construct a granny flat is paying the inflated costs that are the result of union militancy running rampant in the construction sector and all the flow-on effects.

We all have an interest in fixing this issue, and that is why this bill is the only genuine solution to the continued abuse, corruption, intimidation and misuse of market power in the construction sector. That is why I support this bill.

(Q uorum formed)

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the debate has expired.