It is my pleasure to rise and again raise, along with my coalition Senate colleagues, profound and serious concerns about this rogue union. Of course, what this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Administration) Bill 2024, tells us is that Labor has gone into panic mode after failing to do anything about the bullying, the intimidation, the lawlessness, the standover tactics, the illegal payments, the corruption and all the other heinous conduct courtesy of the CFMEU. And it has to be said again, as Senator Cash said so strongly in her media statement, the Albanese government is not telling the truth when it says that its CFMEU legislation will clean up the scandal plagued construction sector. The government’s bill is weak. The government’s bill does not do the job. The CFMEU should be deregistered the way the late Bob Hawke had the courage to do when he led the deregistration of the BLF. Only a number of years before he died, he even called out Labor for failing to take the strongest stand against the CFMEU.
And what people perhaps don’t understand about the CFMEU is that every Labor politician who comes into this place, and particularly those in the Senate, comes as a representative of their union. There are a number of representatives of the CFMEU on the Left. In fact, I am still waiting for answers from the member for Corangamite—on 10 July 2020, I issued a release after it emerged that the CFMEU, which had backed Ms Coker in her campaigns, was demanding that Ms Coker repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in industrial Left union donations.
I will take the interjection. This is not a laughing matter. Whatever deal has been done between the CFMEU and the member for Corangamite—I was at the other end of that campaign, standing at polling booths dealing with the thugs and the bullies and the aggressors from the CFMEU. And for those of us who’ve had to face this in a marginal seat campaign, it is a disgrace.
I will also call out a former member for Corangamite, Darren Cheeseman. He has now been forced to leave the Labor Party because of his conduct, including serious allegations of sexual harassment—we don’t know all the details. He was also backed by the CFMEU. What’s that got to do with the bill? What’s that got to do with the bill, Senator Ciccone? I’ll tell you what it has got to do with the bill. The CFMEU has backed certain members that are still in this parliament, through their thuggery, through their lawlessness.
I continue to remind those opposite what this has got to do with members of parliament. Over a very long period of time, the CFMEU have backed their union representatives who end up in the parliament.
As I said in July 2020: ‘Revelations in today’s media name the CFMMEU’s John Setka as one of the union bosses pursuing payment. It is alleged that hundreds of thousands of dollars are involved. It’s also reported that the CFMEU provided close to 100 volunteers to Ms Coker, and also to the Labor MP Ms Kearney.’ And so, as I do right now and as I did back then, I say this: the member for Corangamite needs to reveal whether these union election donations were properly recorded and declared as required by the Australian Electoral Commission. The member for Corangamite needs to come clean with what happened.
She reportedly defected to Victorian Labor’s extreme Socialist Left faction. I think she then went to another faction. Who would know? There are just so many shabby factional deals. The people of Corangamite deserve answers. Did she repay this money? Why was this demand made? Was this money properly declared? And why are members, like the member for Corangamite, embroiled in these dirty deals with this union when we have known for years that they have been up to their neck in unlawful behaviour, bullying and intimidation. It is an absolute and utter disgrace, so I say to the member for Corangamite: it is time that your constituents knew what went on. ‘What deal was done with John Setka?’ I say to the member for Corangamite. Why was she required to repay money, which was reportedly hundreds of thousands of dollars? What money was given in the first place and what was the agreement? Frankly, Australians have had enough.
It is no wonder that we have such a disaster in our economy in Victoria under the reckless state Labor government, after years of shonky deals with this union that have driven up construction costs in Victoria by some 30 per cent. I say to the minister responsible, Minister Watt, who is sitting opposite in the chamber: if the Albanese government is serious about taking on the CFMEU then this legislation must have teeth. Get a bit of Bob Hawke. Invoke his spirit, his guts, his courage, because we’re not seeing it from this Prime Minister and this government.
We are going to be pursuing a number of amendments. The administration must apply to all branches of the CFMEU for a minimum of three years. The minister should not have the ability to end the administration early. The scheme of administration can only be varied by the Federal Court on the application of the administrator. The legislation must clearly set out what must be in the scheme of administration; this should not be determined solely at the whim of the minister. Political donations, political campaigns and advertising by the CFMEU should be explicitly banned during the period of administration. Frankly, if the Prime Minister had any moral courage he would repay the $4 million that he has received in CFMEU donations since he became the Prime Minister. It’s $6.2 million in total and four grubby million dollars from this union since Labor was elected.
We also want to see greater transparency. The administrator must provide a written report to parliament, every three months after the commencement of the administration, about its activities and progress and appear at Senate estimates. The administrator must also be given the ability to impose longer expulsion or disqualification periods for officers. There must be a new fit-and-proper-person test. There must be the ability for a special purpose auditor to examine the financial dealings of the CFMEU. The special purpose auditor’s first report needs to be tabled by the final sitting day of 2024.
If these and other amendments are not agreed to by the government, we know that this government is only giving the CFMEU a slap across the back of the hand with a wet lettuce. I also invoke Paul Keating in that reference, because one thing I will say about both Bob Hawke and Paul Keating is that they had the courage of their convictions when it came to driving certain reforms. This would never have been tolerated if Bob Hawke were the Prime Minister, but we have a weak and unprincipled government running this country, led by a weak and unprincipled Prime Minister, the most left-leaning Prime Minister in living memory.
It’s about time that this government took its job and its duty to the Australian people seriously.
This is, again, a mess of Labor’s own making. This came about because the government let the CFMEU and the crooks and the spivs and the bullies and the members of outlaw motorcycle gangs off the hook when it abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission and gave control of the construction sector in Australia to their mates in the CFMEU. As a result of Mr Albanese’s decision to abolish the ABCC, we have seen a skyrocketing of criminal activity, threats, corruption, bribery, intimidation, violence, bullying, standover tactics, misappropriation of funds and other accusations of lawlessness by the CFMEU in the construction sector.
I hear the chuckle from a member of the Greens. I’m reminded that when we stood with Senator Lambie to take the strongest of stands in defence of women and the way they were treated by the CFMEU, the Greens voted against Senator Lambie’s private senator’s bill. The Greens did not have the courage of their convictions to stand up to John Setka and the thuggery and particularly, as Senator Lambie was focusing on, the appalling treatment of some women by this union.
As I say, we have a number of very serious concerns about this bill. This bill provides far too much discretion to the minister. In fact, under the current provisions of the bill, he could remove the CFMEU out of administration tomorrow, figuratively speaking, if he wished. If this legislation is going to be supported by the coalition, we need to make sure that it has teeth, that it makes a difference, that there is proper accountability and, frankly, that Australians’ trust in the government can perhaps be restored to some degree. I don’t know really know, because of the way in which Labor members, senators and candidates have covered up this disgraceful conduct over so many years.
Time and time again, we raised serious concerns about multiple breaches of the law. There were multiple findings that the law had been breached and very serious penalties issued against the CFMEU and many of its members. It is really quite disgusting that it took the work of a media organisation, the very fine work of Nick McKenzie and other journalists, to wake up this government, because it didn’t seem to matter. The rap sheet of offences and intimidation, the bullying, the shocking stuff that was going on in construction sites—none of that seemed to resonate.
Of course, even Senator Wong used to work for the CFMEU. I have not heard her get up and call out the CFMEU’s conduct that she obviously would have seen when she was working for them. I’m sure it was not all squeaky clean when Senator Wong was working for the CFMEU. She was an industrial officer for the CFMEU. There are times in public life when you’ve got to do the right thing and stand up to what is right and stand up against what is wrong.
This is a huge warning to the government. You start taking corruption, bribery and these shocking incidents of lawlessness seriously. Don’t just paper over the cracks, because that’s what this bill currently does. You need to give this bill teeth. You need to support all of our amendments, and only then would we agree to pass this bill.